The Phantom Tollbooth (1961)

by Norton Juster, b. 1929; illustrations by Jules Feiffer

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• The main point of this story is that a mind is--well--a terrible thing to waste.
• The problem faced by Milo (the hero) is his intense apathy towards the world around him.
• Milo's problem is solved in a fantastic trip through the pahantom tollbooth, during which he learns the value of using his gifts and renounces passivity.
• The child appeal of this story is due to the inventive use of words and outrageous incidents, supported by zany pictures.
• The story will appeal to parents/teachers because it takes the child through a whole curriculum in critical thinking--without ever letting them know they are being lectured.

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My notes while reading the book

• Gifts (quest element):
  • pencil/magic staff from the Mathemagician (p.201): used to figure out that Trivium tasks will take forever.
  • box of all the words Azaz knows (p.98): used to scare away the Gelatinous Giant.
  • telescope from Alec Bings (p.132): used to discover that the Demon of Insincerity is a harmless little critter.
  • sounds from the Soundkeeper (p.164): the sound of laughter breaks the spell cast by the Senses Taker.
• Messages:
  • Think before you leap--you may have to eat your own words (banquet in palace of Azaz).
  • Beware of half-baked ideas (Azaz' banquet, again)--you may jump to Conclusions (and then, to get back on the right track, you'll have to do the hard work of swimming through the Sea of Knowledge).
  • Use your time wisely, there's so much that can be done in a short span. The familiar sci-fi/fantasy device of the characters' time being different from real time (see also A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) here is used to teach a moral lesson.
  • Stand up for your ideas--don't be a Gelatinous Giant.
  • Don't be sidetracked--the Terrible Trivium and the Senses Taker create all sorts of diversions to send our heroes astray. Oddly and sadly similar to the effect my computer has when it starts crashing in the middle of a project.
  • Have some sense of duty. Short Officer Shrift prizes the grand gestures (apprehending, sentencing, tossing in jail), but gives short shrift to the principal duty of his job--keeping the criminals in jail. By contrast, Faintly Macabre keeps herself in jail for having long ago failed in her duties.
  • Have some empathy for adults. After meeting Alec Bings, Milo gets to float up to a taller (if not higher) point of view.
• Matches the definition of allegory more closely than any of the other books: just about every character and event in the story is symbolic of a higher meaning.
• Two institutions singled out (as in its contemporary Wrinkle in Time) for criticism:
  • The educational system (in the first page, as Milo is introduced): the child is apathetic because nobody ever bothered to explain the purpose of what he is taught.
  • "Big Government" red tape: the Senses Taker guarding the Castle in the Air--a character that only bureaucrats who have taken leave of their senses could love.
• Uses literalism to expose the cliches fed to children--just as children do inadvertently.
• The constant wordplay is part of the overall strategy of the book--awakening the child's mind. Soon the reader realizes that nothing the book says can be taken for granted.
  • It also stimulates the child to take an interest in the power of language to reshape perception--a great introduction to serious literature in a fun format.
  • One apparently too obvious device is a witch who's actually a Which--identical to Wrinkle in Time.
• The overt quest is to bring Rhyme and Reason back to the land beyond the tollbooth. This particular quest is rather disjointed, making the plot appear episodic.
  • The underlying quest is Milo's climb out of passivity and into full awareness of the world. In this respect, this is a consistent quest plot, as each incident teaches a lesson that contributes to the achievement of the ultimate goal.
• A key message is that, to succeed, one must discount the difficulty of the task ahead. Neither of the two kings told Milo that the rescue of Rhyme and Reason was impossible--so he just goes ahead and does it. The idea is similar to the "positive thinking" intimation in Secret Garden, but presented in a subtler, more effective way.
• The illustrations may help children who can't quite work through the puns visualize some of the inventions in the story (such as the watchdog who's a watch plus a dog).
• The theme of words and numbers at war may reflect a contemporary concern with the breakdown of communication between the sciences and the humanities--seen as a major obstacle to the advancement of human knowledge. C.P. Snow's lecture The Two Cultures dates from two years before the publication of this book.

Class discussion

• The author's chief lesson is to stimulate the readers' mental awakening.
• Incitement to accept people's differences--considering relative points of view:
  • Giant/Midget/Fat/Thin Man escapes being just an ordinary guy solely by playing on differences in point of view.
  • Precious gemstones are merely a nuisance in the Numbers Mine.
  • Alec Bings has a different point of view on points of view themselves: he favors growing down so the point of view won't change with age.
• Don't judge based on appearances:
  • The two cities of Illusions and Reality
  • The Demon of Insincerity
• Paying attention:
  • Otherwise one veers off into the Doldrums.
  • People in the Valley of Sounds were too busy to pay attention, so everything fell silent.
• Value of clear thinking:
  • In the Doldrums, the car won't go unless Milo thinks.
  • Fallacy about words growing on trees--because money doesn't, so words must.
  • Think before yielding to impulse--Milo leaps to conduct the sunrise without taking the time to learn--he figures that watching the conductor do it is enough.
  • Empowerment: Milo learns to think through problems (with subtle reasoning, he extracts from the Methamagician his permission to go and find Rhyme and Reason).
• Value of learning:
  • Hard to see in general for a ten-years-old.
  • The .58 child, after discussing averages, tells Milo that things you learn are worth knowing about even if they can never be reached, like Infinity.
• Power of positive thinking--Milo could not have succeeded if he hadn't even tried in the first place.
• Milo is Everykid, after the medieval allegory Everyman. At the beginning of the book, he is described as an utterly generic child. His quest is to rise above his ordinary circumstances.
• Relativity--Milo returns to the same bedroom, but now everything is so much more exciting.
• Quests in children's books tend to involve a group--teaching cooperation is one of the goals.

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