Wednesday, 28 April 2021

Boy "Alice" goes into the Wonderland of "Pilgrim's Progress"

Norton Juster's "The Phantom Tollbooth" merges the surprise journey of Alice through the rabbit hole into strange places with the characters & places named after themselves like in Bunyan's immortal allegory.

A bored boy Milo gets a surprise package which is a miniature Tollbooth. He gets into his toy car & drives through it like Alice plunging into the rabbit hole. He enters a strange world of "Doldrums", a region without cheer & thought. He meets a "Watch" dog called "Tock", which carries a watch in its body. 

Like in the "Wizard of Oz", there is a good witch called "Which." There is a place called "Conclusions" to which one doesn't travel, but jump into it!

The land of Letters has a capital called "Dictionopolis" & the land of numbers' capital is "Digitopolis." The competing claims of the two cannot be reconciled until two princesses, "Rhyme"& "Reason" are rescued from "The Castle in the Air."

Milo, Tock & the appropriately named "Humbug" travel in the car on their noble mission.

After successfully completing it, Milo returns home. But after a night's sleep, he finds the Phantom Tollbooth has vanished, leaving a note that it has accomplished its task, i.e., ridding Milo of his boredom & finding his everyday life interesting & worthwhile.

The book, illustrated by the author's neighbour, Jules Feiffer, gets more interesting, as the age of the reader progresses! Also better the command over English of the reader, more his/her enjoyment. Otherwise the numerous puns & jokes will go right over their head!

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