A story that haunts me is “The Tooth.”
George is roller-skating to meet Martha (with flowers), and he falls and chips his tooth. His favorite tooth. He goes to Martha in distress; he knows he’ll never look the same.
There is a moment of empathy. Martha’s sad face mirrors George’s; the two friends struggle to cope together. (Martha has only one line in this scene: “There, there.” The drawing indicates that Martha has supplied her mourning friend with a comfy chair, a warm blanket, a cup of tea, a Kleenex, and a pillow, for back support. All that detail!)
A surprise twist: The dentist is able to furnish a gold replacement tooth, and it’s even better than the missing tooth. It’s stylish.
“You look so distinguished!” says Martha, delighted. And the two friends skip off happily into the sunset.
What’s striking to me here is that, in the midst of the turmoil, Martha doesn’t try to minimize George’s problem. She doesn’t dismiss what he says; she doesn’t lie about a sunny outcome she can’t predict. She just greets him, sits with him, brings him some helpful props; it’s clear that she shares his pain. (The scene reminds me of something the rabbi said at my son’s bris; part of the point in a bris is to lessen the baby’s burden, by having a *communal* experience of discomfort, not a lonely experience of discomfort.)
Things are easier if we’re connected. James Marshall--who had a talent for friendship, according to Sendak--understood what friends could do for each other. “The Tooth” is a silly story about roller-skating hippos, but it’s also a love story, and it packs its punch (as usual) in just a few well-chosen words.
George is roller-skating to meet Martha (with flowers), and he falls and chips his tooth. His favorite tooth. He goes to Martha in distress; he knows he’ll never look the same.
There is a moment of empathy. Martha’s sad face mirrors George’s; the two friends struggle to cope together. (Martha has only one line in this scene: “There, there.” The drawing indicates that Martha has supplied her mourning friend with a comfy chair, a warm blanket, a cup of tea, a Kleenex, and a pillow, for back support. All that detail!)
A surprise twist: The dentist is able to furnish a gold replacement tooth, and it’s even better than the missing tooth. It’s stylish.
“You look so distinguished!” says Martha, delighted. And the two friends skip off happily into the sunset.
What’s striking to me here is that, in the midst of the turmoil, Martha doesn’t try to minimize George’s problem. She doesn’t dismiss what he says; she doesn’t lie about a sunny outcome she can’t predict. She just greets him, sits with him, brings him some helpful props; it’s clear that she shares his pain. (The scene reminds me of something the rabbi said at my son’s bris; part of the point in a bris is to lessen the baby’s burden, by having a *communal* experience of discomfort, not a lonely experience of discomfort.)
Things are easier if we’re connected. James Marshall--who had a talent for friendship, according to Sendak--understood what friends could do for each other. “The Tooth” is a silly story about roller-skating hippos, but it’s also a love story, and it packs its punch (as usual) in just a few well-chosen words.
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