|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Mysteries of Chris Van Allsburg
| Article
# : |
18806 |
|
|
Section : |
LIFE
|
| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
3,879 Words |
| Author
: |
John C. Tibbetts
John C. Tibbetts, an associate professor of theater and film
at the University of Kansas, contributes regularly to national
music publications and is editor of the recently published
Dvorak in America.
|
In Chris Van Allsburg's children's story The Wreck of the Zephyr, an old sailor offers some advice to a small boy: Find the "right sails," and you can make a boat fly.
When I quote the line back to Van Allsburg, he smiles a slow, deliberate wry smile, "Yeah, but the wind's got to be just right, and the rigging trimmed a certain way--then, it seems like it ought to happen!"
For more than a decade, Van Allsburg has taken millions of young, and old, readers on adventures in the reaches of imagination. "Almost everything I write is a trip, a journey of some kind," he reports. "That's unconscious, although recently I just came to realize it."
A Christmas Classic
His Christmas story, The Polar Express, may be Van Allsburg's most popular book. It is perennially available in a gift edition that includes a cassette by William Hurt. Van Allsburg is mixed about this version; he sincerely believes that family members should read stories to each other. In each gift edition, there is a single sleigh bell. Shake it gently. If you hear the sound--well, first read the book, and you will know what that signifies.
If Christmas has a special significance for Van Allsburg, it resides in the figure of Santa Claus as the only mythic figure in our culture who is believed in by a large percentage of the population. "The presentation of the Christmas myth to a child is an incredible gift and experience," he continues. "Here we are, citizens of the late twentieth century, getting to encounter reality the same way the Greeks did. You literally believe there's a guy who can fly through the sky and squeeze down a chimney. You literally believe he knows it you've been naughty or nice. And that's the way--well, that's the way the Greeks interpreted their reality.
"As far as The Polar Express is concerned, I didn't intend it at first as a Christmas story at all. I just had this idea of a train waiting to take a child on a trip. At first, I didn't think of the train as outside his door the way it happens now, but in a more reasonable place, like in the woods where the boy's never seen tracks before. Then I changed it to right there in the street. The image of that giant behemoth train and the steam all over in thick clouds outside his window was striking to me. The image provoked me. I asked myself, where is the boy going? He's going north, I guess. What does he
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
