Wayside School - revisited
Aug. 28th, 2021 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primeidealThe bizarro-humor Wayside School trilogy was a favorite of mine growing up (especially volume 2, "Falling Down"). The original books were published in 1978, 1989, and 1995, so by the time I was in grade school and reading them they were a complete set. (I was about the right age for "Holes" when it came out, or a little later.)
But I did not at all expect there to be a fourth volume, released last year. And now that it's almost Yuletide-nominations season I decided to track the originals down and reread them before moving onto the "Cloud of Doom," I saw in reviews that there might be some callbacks/continuity nods.
Some random highlights:
"Bebe was the fastest draw in the class. She could draw a cat in less than forty-five seconds." a joke that probably went over my head as a kid.
The normal punishment for misbehavior is writing your name on the blackboard under the word DISCIPLINE. This escalates to underlining and circling--if your name gets circled, you have to go home early on the kindergarten bus. Turns out Mrs. Jewls has had to go beyond that, when dealing with Sammy the dead rat she drew a triangle around the circle...
"You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy." -DJ
"Ron and I will stand everybody." -Louis the Yard Teacher. The word "stand" means "compete against" in this context. This is not a usage I was familiar with (maybe things were different in 1978) so I looked it up and not only is this usage on Wiktionary, this is one of the example sentences!
In the first chapter Louis sees pencils and paper on the playground, then he goes upstairs and hears how Mrs. Jewls' class has been using them to learn about gravity...
"Joy got the bongo drums. Todd got the bass drum. Jenny snared the snare drums. And Leslie got the kettledrum. When they banged on them, it hurt everybody else's eardrums."
Dana wanting to leave the room when Mrs. Jewls reads because the stories are always so sad. D: except when Mrs. Jewls says "you don't hate stories, you actually love them" she just believes her right away. (I feel like my experience was less straightforward.)
Calvin being freaked out about getting a tattoo because whatever it is, he'll have to live with it forever. See note on Jason next book.
Love isn't zero-sum; if you give it away, you have even more. I feel like there can be gaps between people who come from cultures where they say "I love you" platonically all the time and others?
"Terrence, what are you whispering about?" "Nothing." "If you can say it to Jenny, you can say it to me." "Get off my case, buzzard face." "Terrence! Go write your name on the blackboard." "But that's what I said to Jenny!"
"The capital of England is E" Louis Sachar would be good at cryptic crosswords.
"The brine had cured her" another subtle pun
Joy steals Maurecia's lunch, after almost learning her lesson from stealing Dameon's lunch last book.
The whole absurd Mark Miller | Benjamin Nushmutt doppelganger situation is just wonderfully surreal. If I wanted to troll Yuletide I would nominate Benjamin Nushmutt (the kid in Mrs. Jewls' class who people think is called Mark Miller) and Mark Miller (the kid in Mrs. Zarves' class who people think is called Benjamin Nushmutt) and see how Ao3 disambiguates them but I'm not that evil.
"Can you find my pencil? It's yellow with a point at one end and a red eraser on the other." also a continuity nod
The whole chapter with the "Who's on First" pet names.
"Mr. Gorf might be a good teacher," said Eric Bacon. "Just because he has the same last name as Mrs. Gorf doesn't mean he'll be horrible."
"That's right," said Eric Ovens. "People with the same name can be different."
"I agree," said Eric Fry.
"So, either Kathy had decided to be nice to me, or Mr. Gorf was a mean teacher who sucked children's voices up his nose." She shrugged. "I just didn't think Kathy would be nice." -Miss Mush summarizing the logic behind Wayside School.
Mrs. Drazil's description of air resistance and gravity is pretty good. (I'm also curious how much of the silly, but mathematically enjoyable, "Sideways Arithmetic" spinoffs Sachar himself wrote.)
"Excuse me, sorry, out of my way, coming through!" Joy making her way through a crowd. But I'm wondering if this got earwormed in my head because I feel like I've heard or said that to myself in other contexts. Maybe it's just the sort of sing-song nonsense that gets stuck there.
"Nobody quite understood Joe's mathematical methods" also a callback to Sideways Stories
The bald goons in the basement can see Miss Zarves.
Jason is terrified of cavities. I wonder if this made me afraid of them also--not "oh no the dentist is going to drill in my mouth, that's the worst," but "if I have a cavity it's the worst thing ever, it means I've failed to take care of myself and am a total failure." Because that's a neurosis I had to explain at some point. Subliminal influences?
"there was a guard standing by the Mona Lisa, to make sure people didn't touch it" - Paul's dad!
Memorizing the dictionary, a strategy both Miss Zarves and Miss Nogard use with their classes.
Note on the publication history: "To fully enjoy this book you should read the other three first, wait forty years, and then read this one. Or you could just read it now." Thanks, Louis. I think I've waited long enough. :)
Some callbacks: "goozack," upside-down/backwards/weirdly formatted text, "name a city in England." "London!"
Dana's face got stuck, so Louis blew his whistle really loud. He didn't expect this would work, he just liked blowing his whistle.
"What's the point of anything when there's a cloud of doom?"
"There is no point," said Myron, stabbing his pencil. The point broke. (BTW, an interview with Sachar about the more modern/dark themes quotes him as saying, "I'm not sure if I feel hopeful or not, but I think it's important that kids feel hopeful.")
The principal smiled. "What's all this?" he asked, pointing to the twenty-seven plastic containers stacked against the wall.
"Toenails," said Paul.
"Also fingernails," added Leslie so the principal wouldn't think the class was weird. :D
In Wayside School the exercises are called "push-downs" and "pull-downs." Except by Kathy, who likes being contrarian sometimes.
"stop using the Cloud of Doom as an excuse not to do your work"
Miss Nogard and Louis are still close!
"Friends stick by each other when one is down. That is a true test of friendship. But sometimes, it is harder to stick by a friend who is up." True!
Miss Zarves is there, of course (though not in chapter 19) and another callback.
We do not find out what a Mugworm Griblick is, though.
Okay, so it's more goofy humor, and less "this is the long-awaited Chekhov that will tie everything together," but that's okay, you don't need to understand how everything is connected to enjoy Wayside School. If I nominate it it'll probably be at least Dana and Miss Zarves, not sure though.
But I did not at all expect there to be a fourth volume, released last year. And now that it's almost Yuletide-nominations season I decided to track the originals down and reread them before moving onto the "Cloud of Doom," I saw in reviews that there might be some callbacks/continuity nods.
Some random highlights:
"Bebe was the fastest draw in the class. She could draw a cat in less than forty-five seconds." a joke that probably went over my head as a kid.
The normal punishment for misbehavior is writing your name on the blackboard under the word DISCIPLINE. This escalates to underlining and circling--if your name gets circled, you have to go home early on the kindergarten bus. Turns out Mrs. Jewls has had to go beyond that, when dealing with Sammy the dead rat she drew a triangle around the circle...
"You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy." -DJ
"Ron and I will stand everybody." -Louis the Yard Teacher. The word "stand" means "compete against" in this context. This is not a usage I was familiar with (maybe things were different in 1978) so I looked it up and not only is this usage on Wiktionary, this is one of the example sentences!
In the first chapter Louis sees pencils and paper on the playground, then he goes upstairs and hears how Mrs. Jewls' class has been using them to learn about gravity...
"Joy got the bongo drums. Todd got the bass drum. Jenny snared the snare drums. And Leslie got the kettledrum. When they banged on them, it hurt everybody else's eardrums."
Dana wanting to leave the room when Mrs. Jewls reads because the stories are always so sad. D: except when Mrs. Jewls says "you don't hate stories, you actually love them" she just believes her right away. (I feel like my experience was less straightforward.)
Calvin being freaked out about getting a tattoo because whatever it is, he'll have to live with it forever. See note on Jason next book.
Love isn't zero-sum; if you give it away, you have even more. I feel like there can be gaps between people who come from cultures where they say "I love you" platonically all the time and others?
"Terrence, what are you whispering about?" "Nothing." "If you can say it to Jenny, you can say it to me." "Get off my case, buzzard face." "Terrence! Go write your name on the blackboard." "But that's what I said to Jenny!"
"The capital of England is E" Louis Sachar would be good at cryptic crosswords.
"The brine had cured her" another subtle pun
Joy steals Maurecia's lunch, after almost learning her lesson from stealing Dameon's lunch last book.
The whole absurd Mark Miller | Benjamin Nushmutt doppelganger situation is just wonderfully surreal. If I wanted to troll Yuletide I would nominate Benjamin Nushmutt (the kid in Mrs. Jewls' class who people think is called Mark Miller) and Mark Miller (the kid in Mrs. Zarves' class who people think is called Benjamin Nushmutt) and see how Ao3 disambiguates them but I'm not that evil.
"Can you find my pencil? It's yellow with a point at one end and a red eraser on the other." also a continuity nod
The whole chapter with the "Who's on First" pet names.
"Mr. Gorf might be a good teacher," said Eric Bacon. "Just because he has the same last name as Mrs. Gorf doesn't mean he'll be horrible."
"That's right," said Eric Ovens. "People with the same name can be different."
"I agree," said Eric Fry.
"So, either Kathy had decided to be nice to me, or Mr. Gorf was a mean teacher who sucked children's voices up his nose." She shrugged. "I just didn't think Kathy would be nice." -Miss Mush summarizing the logic behind Wayside School.
Mrs. Drazil's description of air resistance and gravity is pretty good. (I'm also curious how much of the silly, but mathematically enjoyable, "Sideways Arithmetic" spinoffs Sachar himself wrote.)
"Excuse me, sorry, out of my way, coming through!" Joy making her way through a crowd. But I'm wondering if this got earwormed in my head because I feel like I've heard or said that to myself in other contexts. Maybe it's just the sort of sing-song nonsense that gets stuck there.
"Nobody quite understood Joe's mathematical methods" also a callback to Sideways Stories
The bald goons in the basement can see Miss Zarves.
Jason is terrified of cavities. I wonder if this made me afraid of them also--not "oh no the dentist is going to drill in my mouth, that's the worst," but "if I have a cavity it's the worst thing ever, it means I've failed to take care of myself and am a total failure." Because that's a neurosis I had to explain at some point. Subliminal influences?
"there was a guard standing by the Mona Lisa, to make sure people didn't touch it" - Paul's dad!
Memorizing the dictionary, a strategy both Miss Zarves and Miss Nogard use with their classes.
Note on the publication history: "To fully enjoy this book you should read the other three first, wait forty years, and then read this one. Or you could just read it now." Thanks, Louis. I think I've waited long enough. :)
Some callbacks: "goozack," upside-down/backwards/weirdly formatted text, "name a city in England." "London!"
Dana's face got stuck, so Louis blew his whistle really loud. He didn't expect this would work, he just liked blowing his whistle.
"What's the point of anything when there's a cloud of doom?"
"There is no point," said Myron, stabbing his pencil. The point broke. (BTW, an interview with Sachar about the more modern/dark themes quotes him as saying, "I'm not sure if I feel hopeful or not, but I think it's important that kids feel hopeful.")
The principal smiled. "What's all this?" he asked, pointing to the twenty-seven plastic containers stacked against the wall.
"Toenails," said Paul.
"Also fingernails," added Leslie so the principal wouldn't think the class was weird. :D
In Wayside School the exercises are called "push-downs" and "pull-downs." Except by Kathy, who likes being contrarian sometimes.
"stop using the Cloud of Doom as an excuse not to do your work"
Miss Nogard and Louis are still close!
"Friends stick by each other when one is down. That is a true test of friendship. But sometimes, it is harder to stick by a friend who is up." True!
Miss Zarves is there, of course (though not in chapter 19) and another callback.
We do not find out what a Mugworm Griblick is, though.
Okay, so it's more goofy humor, and less "this is the long-awaited Chekhov that will tie everything together," but that's okay, you don't need to understand how everything is connected to enjoy Wayside School. If I nominate it it'll probably be at least Dana and Miss Zarves, not sure though.
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Date: 8/29/21 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/6/21 11:56 pm (UTC)