I haven't read the book he's actually writing about...

...but this is just priceless:

From Read Roger:

But the thing is this: The Giving Tree never was a book for children; it was a book for adults charmed by thinking themselves sophisticated for finding such "wisdom" in a kiddie book. Idiots.

I would have loved to prominently post that quote in the store.  That way, every time some horrible drunk Harvard skag came in slobbering on her date about "th' won'erful book The Giving Tree", we could have pointed at it.  And laughed.

Comments

[Lisa]

Oh man I hate "The Giving Tree." It's almost as bad as "I Love You Forever."

[steve]

You know, I really really liked the Tree as a kid. But all those customers kind of made me hate it over the years.

[jess]

I loved that line, too.

[Katya]

Found my way here from Jess's blog. I love yours. Of course, I don't need anymore books to read, but oh well I really can't help myself. I've never read The Giving Tree -- I meant to but never got around to it.

[Roger Sutton]

Man, you're meaner than me. ;-)

[david]

Most people get "The Giving Tree" all wrong. The underlying message in the book has more to do with disfunctional interpersonal relationships -- not some ooey-gooey love -- and this is in keeping with Silverstien's view of the world. The child in the story takes and takes and takes and gives nothing back and in the end is left a sad and lonely old man.

Silverstien was sly and cynical and he knew how to bend his vision in such a way that people could pull from it whatever they saw through their own goggles. He was a counter-culture subversive who wrote and illustrated for Playboy and held David Mamet as a close friend.

Perhaps my eye is jaundiced, but even in high school I figured out what he was up to.

[Gwen]

David, THANK YOU. I'm so glad to finally hear someone agree with me. The unending popularity of that book makes me so frustrated.

Also, I knew a guy in college who constantly talked about how it was his favorite book ever, and the truest depiction of What Love Is. Unsurprisingly, he still hasn't found a girl who wants to be his tree.

[Leila]

Roger: ME? Meaner than you? For real? I'm so flattered. (You rule.)

Gwen: I'm sure that if that guy is still looking for a girl to be his tree, he could find one in Harvard Square. If that doesn't work out, he could try hanging out on the sidewalk with a copy of The Little Prince. That always brings 'em flocking.

[Colleen]

I remember one of my aunts having this book back in the 70s (as well as The Missing Piece) and I never could figure out why she loved them so much. They seemed like sad stories to me, but David you nailed it perfectly for Giving Tree. What's weirdest though is that they have consistently been marketed and sold as children's books. They aren't and they never will be.

They are fucked up adult with fucked up childhood books.

Oops. Did I just write that?

[Leila]

My personal favorite is Uncle Shelby's ABZ, in which he says things like:

P is for Pony. There's an invisible pony living in Daddy's gas tank. He's hungry. Won't you feed the pony some sugar?

It's awesome. On the front cover, there's a bit that specifically states that the book is for Adults Only. (I do wonder if that note was on the original print run, though...) Almost weekly, we had people coming in to the store who wanted to buy it for kids. They were always horrified that we kept it at the grown-up store.