Friday, February 01, 2013

Low-life?

When Dave and I were playing Scrabble yesterday, the word WAZOO popped into my head. It comes from Dr Seuss – some characters called the brothers Wazoo.

And it occurred to me that I would far rather have written Dr Seuss’s oeuvre than any number of Booker winners. (See yesterday’s post where I decided I was a cultural low-life.) Dr Seuss’s children’s books are funny, wise, moral, creative and life-affirming. My favourite is DID I EVER TELL YOU HOW LUCKY YOU ARE? Go on, treat yourself: it’s a Seuss classic. It costs £4.79 on Amazon, and if you’re boycotting Amazon, you can get anywhere else for a fiver.

We quote him all the time at Hepworth Towers.

He did win the Pulitzer prize, but then I’ve always found Pulitzer prize-winners more accessible and enjoyable than Booker winners e.g. The Stone Diaries, Breathing Lessons, A Thousand Acres, Olive Kitteridge, March, all of which I came across with no idea that they had won a prize.….maybe I have an American sensibility when it comes to fiction.

3 comments:

Christine said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Christine said...

This is interesting, Sue, because I only came across the Doctor Seuss books when I read them with my daughter, and I found some of them really creepy!

Sue Hepworth said...

Hi Chrissie, I removed your first comment as it was a duplicate - you probably got fed up of waiting for me to post comments. (I was out.)I will show you my favourite Seuss book and you can see what you think!