As fond as I am of digging deep into picture books, I know they’re most pleasurable when read for an experience rather than for meaning. That’s not to say they don’t have meaning and shouldn’t be challenging and thought-provoking, but that the enjoyment is in the feeling. And contrary to what some may think, it’s often the more abstruse books that provoke us the most. Obscure books don’t tell how to feel; instead, they elicit emotions through abstractions, allowing space for readers to decide things for themselves. Not everyone enjoys these types of stories. Experimental art can be a work of genius to some and pretentious garbage to others. Consider Goodnight Moon (1947) by Margaret Wise Brown: a polarizing book despite its steadfast spot on best-seller lists since the early ‘70s. Goodnight Moon is one of my favorite books, but even I didn’t always understand its purpose. Despite finding it mysteriously hypnotic as a child, I wasn’t sure what all the hype was about. It wasn’t until I had children and repeatedly read it to them that it clicked. With each reread, we have new observations, questions, and feelings. We’re continually drawn to the enigmatic “great green room” without exactly knowing why. It’s fun to theorize, but we don’t need to. The book is “about” experiences: the experience of going to bed and the experience of reading it at bedtime.
In the Half Room (2020) by Carson Ellis works similarly. You can’t really explain what it’s about. There are many half things: a half-moon, a half-room, a half-woman, a half-cat—none of which are explained. Like Goodnight Moon, the book relies on rhythm and atmosphere rather than plot. Although, when the half-woman (serendipitously?) meets her other half and SHOOOOOPS into her whole self, it’s tempting to think the book is about the joy of feeling whole, of becoming your “true” self, but that’s not the point, especially because Ellis makes sure not to unite the two half-cats at the end. In the Half Room is an incantation: a nonsensical dreamlike spell of words that produce an effect—that effect depends on the reader—but for me, it’s a befuddling delight.
The experimental poet Gertrude Stein also perplexes readers. (Stein was a huge influence on Margaret Wise Brown.) She wanted readers to feel her words rather than understand them. She believed too much interpretation robs readers of enjoyment. To read the works of Stein, Brown, and Ellis is to read with the body. There’s a pulsating intertextuality between them. It’s not the words that are most meaningful but the sounds of the words. The textual enjoyment is in listening to and feeling the rise, fall, and unexpected breaks in the rhythm.
Here’s Stein in a 1934 radio interview:
