Everything Tagged with 'Dave Eggers'
Vanity Fair Profiles Maurice Sendak
Written by Dave Eggers and photographed by Annie Leibovitz, it’s a ‘Can’t Miss’ portrait of the man:
Sendak’s sense of humor is pitch-black and ribald, though this fact, and the baroque essence of his work, is often lost on readers now that his books have become canonical. “A woman came up to me the other day and said, ‘You’re the kiddie-book man!’ I wanted to kill her.” He hates to be thought of as safe or his work as classic, and he won’t tolerate overpraise. “My work is not great, but it’s respectable. I have no false illusions.”
He’s wrong, of course. Sendak is the best-known, and by most measures simply the best, living creator of picture books, and in the stretch of years since his most prolific period—when he made In the Night Kitchen, Where the Wild Things Are, Kenny’s Window, The Sign on Rosie’s Door, and the “Nutshell Library”—his work has only grown in stature. No one has been more uncompromising, more idiosyncratic, and more in touch with the unhinged and chiaroscuro subconscious of a child.
Sendak’s upcoming picture book, Bumble-Ardy – the first he’s done solely on his own since 1981’s Outside Over There – looks great, and I can’t wait for it. Anymore, though, I find myself more excited by Maurice Sendak himself. He’s a fascinating man, both as an artist and an individual, and he holds what I think is a wonderful attitude and philosophy about children and childhood. If you ever wanted a glimpse into his life and thoughts, I can’t recommend enough that you go out and watch the 2010 documentary Tell Them Anything You Want, by Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs: it’s an uncompromisingly honest portrait of him, one that touches on the many wonderfully rich, philosophical themes that have emerged throughout his life.
Though he is now 83 years old, it strikes me that, just in these past few years, ol’ Maurice has perhaps become more alive and honest and connected to life than ever before.