No. 5 from a series of six things all writers can learn from Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, based on Laura Miller’s 9 March 2021 article in Slate © 2021 The Slate Group LLC
I said in Post 1 that procrastination can be a useful tool. But there’s Bad Procrastination, too. The kind that makes us chase shiny objects and be lost in the rabbit hole of the interwebs.
“As a child,” wrote Miller, “I found the Terrible Trivium, an exquisitely tailored dandy without a face, to be one of the creepiest characters I’d ever encountered.”
“It was only as an adult,” she wrote, “that I appreciated how terrifying he truly is.”
In The Phantom Tollbooth the Trivium diverts the heroes from their quest by charmingly enlisting their help with ‘a few small jobs.’
One of these jobs is moving a pile of sand from one spot to another with a pair of tweezers.
Juster said the Trivium was inspired by his tendency to sit at his desk and “Realize that I have to straighten out the paper clips, or there’s something happening out the window, or a shopping list has to be compiled.”
Posts in this series:
1. Procrastination isn’t always your enemy
3. Don’t be afraid of the big themes
4. No literary genre ever really dies
5. Procrastination IS sometimes your enemy
6. Good writing is as much about what you don’t say
Acknowledgement
In early March 2021 the writer and architect Norton Juster died at the age of 91. He was the author of the beloved fantasy adventure book The Phantom Tollboth, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer. Shortly afterwards, Laura Miller published the article ‘Six Things All Writers Can Learn from The Phantom Tollbooth’ in Slate as an appreciation of Juster. “Every time I return to the book,” wrote Miller, “I marvel at how beautifully crafted it is, and not just for a kids’ book. There’s plenty that all kinds of writers can learn from Juster’s masterpiece.” I’m basing this series of posts on that article.
