App star turns over an old leaf
By Nathan Heller |
August 26, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IT may be telling that "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore," a kind of totem to the unmatched joys of reading, appeared in two different screen adaptations before making the transition into print. Winning an Oscar earlier this year for best animated short after appearing, last summer, as a lauded animated app, William Joyce's story of a natty Southern loner was a feat of digital imagination, a dazzlingly polished animation and a wordless tribute to a fading literary age. Now, realized at last as a children's book, his tale gains elegance but loses depth. The print-edition "Morris Lessmore" is a stylishly paced, vividly illustrated parable for young readers, yet it somehow lacks the dreamy creativity of its animated precursors. Ultimately, Joyce's book tells us something we may already suspect: that storytelling these days has a broader canvas than the hallowed space within the library doors.
Morris Lessmore, a young bibliophile with a dapper brown suit and an unconquerable cowlick, spends his days on a porch piled high with books and his spare time jotting down his private concerns in a journal. ("His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another," Joyce charmingly puts it.) But when a storm sweeps through town - toppling houses, scattering the letters of Morris's beloved texts - the world as he knows it is violently upended. Parched of narrative, Morris wanders through a black-and-white ruined landscape.
Then, books re-enter his life. Out walking one day, Morris spies "a festive squadron of flying books" (Joyce's illustrations are, helpfully, a good deal more precise here than his diction) guiding a beautiful young woman through the air. Seeing Morris's sad state, she offers him her favorite member of the squad, a two-legged volume who promptly leads him toward the local library. Morris is enthralled. Books line the walls and flutter through the air; when he starts reading, all color returns to his world. "Morris found great satisfaction in caring for the books," Joyce writes. Our hero performs restorative surgery on fragile hardback spines; when gray boys and girls and men and women visit, he offers stories to imbue their lives with vibrant hues. And so it goes, up through the winter of his life. "The days passed," Joyce writes. "So did the months. And then years."
"Morris Lessmore" is filled with such elegant and well-worn turns of phrase - narrative refrains that give the story a sage poise. Yet some burnish of originality may have been lost along the way. Although Joyce's book is as visually lush as his film, its wildest elements haven't survived the journey to the page.
Perhaps it's unfair to hold a charming illustrated narrative to the highest standard of originality. But if the books don't show kids how startling a story on the page can be, who will?
Morris Lessmore, a young bibliophile with a dapper brown suit and an unconquerable cowlick, spends his days on a porch piled high with books and his spare time jotting down his private concerns in a journal. ("His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another," Joyce charmingly puts it.) But when a storm sweeps through town - toppling houses, scattering the letters of Morris's beloved texts - the world as he knows it is violently upended. Parched of narrative, Morris wanders through a black-and-white ruined landscape.
Then, books re-enter his life. Out walking one day, Morris spies "a festive squadron of flying books" (Joyce's illustrations are, helpfully, a good deal more precise here than his diction) guiding a beautiful young woman through the air. Seeing Morris's sad state, she offers him her favorite member of the squad, a two-legged volume who promptly leads him toward the local library. Morris is enthralled. Books line the walls and flutter through the air; when he starts reading, all color returns to his world. "Morris found great satisfaction in caring for the books," Joyce writes. Our hero performs restorative surgery on fragile hardback spines; when gray boys and girls and men and women visit, he offers stories to imbue their lives with vibrant hues. And so it goes, up through the winter of his life. "The days passed," Joyce writes. "So did the months. And then years."
"Morris Lessmore" is filled with such elegant and well-worn turns of phrase - narrative refrains that give the story a sage poise. Yet some burnish of originality may have been lost along the way. Although Joyce's book is as visually lush as his film, its wildest elements haven't survived the journey to the page.
Perhaps it's unfair to hold a charming illustrated narrative to the highest standard of originality. But if the books don't show kids how startling a story on the page can be, who will?
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