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Outside, over there
May. 8th, 2012 07:02 pmWhen he was only 39, and touring the UK to promote the publication here of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak had a heart attack. He might have died then, but he was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, and his life was saved (and that's why the QE Gateshead makes a cameo appearance in the skyline of the Night Kitchen).
By that measure, everything he has done since is a bonus. What's more, his health has long been poor. It shouldn't be a surprise that he has died, that there will be no more books (one posthumous publication, and that's it). No surprise, perhaps, but a real sense of loss.
On the first morning of our recent trip, I spent a happy half hour in the bookshop opposite our hotel in Chicago, and came out with a Sendak that was completely new to me (Bumble-Ardy, as it happens); on the last afternoon, in a thrift shop in Alum Rock, I pounced on a copy of I Saw Esau, his version of a collection of rhymes from the collection of Iona and Peter Opie. The last poem in that book is End of Term, and its last verse:
By that measure, everything he has done since is a bonus. What's more, his health has long been poor. It shouldn't be a surprise that he has died, that there will be no more books (one posthumous publication, and that's it). No surprise, perhaps, but a real sense of loss.
On the first morning of our recent trip, I spent a happy half hour in the bookshop opposite our hotel in Chicago, and came out with a Sendak that was completely new to me (Bumble-Ardy, as it happens); on the last afternoon, in a thrift shop in Alum Rock, I pounced on a copy of I Saw Esau, his version of a collection of rhymes from the collection of Iona and Peter Opie. The last poem in that book is End of Term, and its last verse:
Np more things to bring us sorrowAlas, no.
Cos we won't be here tomorrow.
