The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) is a children's book and a modern fairy tale full of wordplay and adventure. Written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, it tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who drives through a magic tollbooth into the Kingdom of Wisdom, where he embarks on a noble quest and in the end learns a valuable lesson.

The Phantom Tollbooth has been compared to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Journey to the West, and the works of Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. Juster claims his father's fondness for puns and The Marx Brothers' movies were a major influence.

Creation

Juster wrote The Phantom Tollbooth (ISBN 0-394-81500-9) while he was living in Brooklyn, New York. He had received a grant from the Ford Foundation to write a children's book about urban perception—how people experience cities. After several months of work, he realized he was bored with that project and wrote The Phantom Tollbooth instead, primarily to amuse himself.

Feiffer was a neighbor of ezekials who lived in the same building in Brooklyn Heights. He started contributing illustrations while Juster worked on the novel. Feiffer's illustrations have been part of the book since the first edition.

The first edition of The Phantom Tollbooth was published in September 1961 by Epstein & Carroll (LC 61013202) and distributed by Random House; the book has remained in print since then, and is currently produced under Random House's Alfred A. Knopf imprint.

Plot overview

Template:Spoiler A bored little boy named Milo comes home one day to find an unusual gift waiting for him in his room: a strange purple tollbooth. When he drives past the assembled structure in his small car - he is transported to the Kingdom of Wisdom, where he chooses to visit one of the divided country's two capitals, Dictionopolis. En route he gets lost in the Doldrums, but is found and rescued by the steadfast watchdog Tock, who joins him on his journey.

They arrive in Dictionopolis, where all the world's letters are grown in orchards and sold in a vast marketplace. During a brief incarceration in the city's dungeon, Milo talks to Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which [sic], who tells him about Wisdom's two rulers, King Azaz and the Mathamagician, and their adopted sisters, Rhyme and Reason. The two princesses were unable to settle the long-standing argument between their brothers over whether letters or numbers are more important and were consequently banished to the Castle in the Air, high in the demon-infested Mountains of Ignorance. Milo then meets Azaz, who sadly admits it had been a mistake to banish the pair. He agrees to allow the princesses to be rescued, providing his brother also agrees - a remote event, as they have not agreed on anything for years. Milo and Tock leave Dictionopolis with the blustering Humbug, whom Azaz has sent along as a guide. The three drive toward Wisdom's other capital, Digitopolis, where they hope to persuade the Mathemagician to agree to allow the rescue.

Entering the Forest of Sight, they meet Alec Bings, a little boy who sees through things and grows until he reaches the ground, then visit the twin cities of Reality and Illusions and watch Chroma and his symphony of color conduct the sunset. Moving on to the Valley of Sound, the travellers meet Dr. Dischord, who dispenses unpleasant noises, and his smoky sidekick the Awful Dynne. In the valley proper, which is completely silent, Milo visits the palace of the Soundkeeper, creator and cataloguer of all sounds, who has withheld the valley's sounds because the inhabitants had stopped appreciating them. Milo steals a sound from the palace, which the people of the valley use to break open the palace's sound vault. A sadder but wiser Soundkeeper repents her actions.

Milo and his friends continue onto Digitopolis after taking a short detour to the Island of Conclusions, to which they jump after making assumptions about their trip. Returning to the mainland, they meet the Dodecahedron, a man with twelve faces, each of which expresses a different emotion. He takes them to the Mathemagician, who shows them the Numbers Mine, where the world's digits are pulled from the earth like jewels. Milo tricks the Mathemagician into agreeing with his brother to release the princesses, and the ruler takes them to the edge of Mountains of Ignorance.

Milo, Tock, and the Humbug hike into the gloomy Mountains. They first meet the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a dirty bird who twists the meanings of their speech. Far more dangerous are the Terrible Trivium, who stalls the travelers with meaningless busywork; the Demon of Insincerity, who tricks them into falling into a pit; and the ever-hungry Gelatinous Giant. Fortunately, the people Milo met in his travels have all given him useful gifts which help the trio to escape these demons and make their way to the tall staircase which leads to the Castle in the Air. At the foot of the stairs, the three travelers encounter a final demon, the Senses Taker, who bogs them down with his demands for all sorts of trivial information before taking their senses. The one thing he can't take is their sense of humor, as revealed by the gift of laughter from the Soundkeeper.

They climb to the Castle, where the two princesses welcome Milo, and congratulate him on his achievement. The enraged demons chop off the base of the staircase, causing the Castle to begin to float away. Fortunately, time flies, and Tock is able to carry the others back to earth. The heroes flee from the Mountains, but are closely pursued by the demons. The combined armies of Wisdom, led by Azaz and the Mathemagician, appear and drive back the demons. The two leaders welcome the princesses home and begin a celebration to mark their return.

Milo must also return home and says goodbye to all his new friends. The next day, he hurries home with dreams of further adventures only to find the tollbooth has vanished. All that remains is a note that tells him that other people need the tollbooth, and that he can now find his own way back to Wisdom. Milo's sadness is brief, as he realizes that there are a million adventures to be had in his own town, or even his own room.

Characters

• Milo, the protagonist
• Tock, a ticking watchdog and loyal companion of Milo. The job of a watchdog runs in his family (father-to-son).
• The Humbug, a large talking insect who acts as the anti-hero
• King Azaz the Unabridged, ruler of Dictionopolis and loves words
• The Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis and loves numbers
• Rhyme and Reason (also known as The Princesses of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason)
• Faintly Macabre, (or Aunt Faintly) the Not-So-Wicked Which
• Alec Bings, who sees through things. Like the other members of his family, he grows downwards from a fixed point in the air until he reaches the ground
• Chroma, conductor of the world's color
• Kakofonous A. Dischord, a fan of noise: the "A" stands for "AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!"
• The Awful Dynne, an emotional, noise-loving creature formed of blue smoke; an accomplice of Dr. Dischord. His grandfather was The Dreadful Rauw, who died during "the Great Silence Epidemic of 1712".
• The Soundkeeper, ruler of the Valley of Sound, and keeper of a large collection of previously-uttered noises; a stern woman who actually prefers silence, and at one point banned sound in her valley because she felt the locals had abused the privilege
• The Dodecahedron, an inhabitant of Digitopolis with twelve faces: one happy, one sad, one angry, and so forth
• The Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a monstrous filthy bird that anticipates everything you say and takes the words right out of your mouth; has ambitions of being a demon, but can only manage to be a nuisance
• The Terrible Trivium, a demon who seduces passers-by with mindlessly easy but pointless tasks that take an incredibly long time to accomplish.
• The Demon of Insincerity, who looks like a cross between a beaver and a kangaroo. He tries to scare Milo and his companions off their path through the Mountains of Ignorance by throwing half-truths at them, which are only dispelled when they see this demon for what he really is. (from Spark Notes)
• The Gelatinous Giant, who is so huge that Milo first mistakes him for a mountain. He is the epitome of spinelessness. He hides in the Mountains of Ignorance and tries to look exactly like everything around him because he thinks it is "unsafe" to be different. (from Spark Notes)
• The Senses Taker, a demon who distracts passers-by by supplying them with illusions of things they would rather be perceiving
• Officer Shrift (born July 27), apparently Dictionopolis' entire police force, who enjoys arresting and imprisoning people, but isn't concerned with keeping them incarcerated. He is taller sitting down than standing up, and is almost twice as wide as he is tall.
• The Whether Man, who tries to send travellers beyond Expectations, Milo's first stop on his trip. Lost his way long ago.
• The Lethargarians, whose regular schedule consists of dawdling and dillydallying, with a little timewasting every so often; their home is in the Doldrums
• The Spelling Bee, an expert at word-construction who quarrels violently with the Humbug
• The Half Boy, a boy who is only .58 of a person. He comes from the "average" family, which has 2.58 children. He is the .58.
• The Giant, the Midget, the Fat Man, and the Thin Man, all the same very ordinary-looking individual who explains that he is at once the world's shortest giant, tallest midget, thinnest fat man, and fattest thin man
• Canby, a frequent visitor to Conclusions who is both as short as can be and as tall as can be, among other things
• King Azaz's advisors/cabinet, includes the Duke of Definition, Minister of Meaning, Count of Connotation, Earl of Essence, and the Undersecretary of Understanding.

Other versions

In 1969, animation director Chuck Jones adapted The Phantom Tollbooth into a full-length feature film. Produced by MGM Animation/Visual Arts, the film combines live-action and animation (Milo's life before traveling to the Kingdom of Wisdom is live-action; after he passes through the tollbooth gate, the movie becomes animated). It features the voices of Butch Patrick (who also plays the real-life version of Milo), Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Hans Conreid, June Foray, Cliff Norton and Patti Gilbert.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer held the film up for release until 1970 due to internal problems, and the animation studio closed soon afterwards. Juster had no input into the film adaptation, and has stated that he is not particularly fond of it.

In 1995, Juster adapted Tollbooth into a libretto for an opera version.

Various stage adaptations including the Susan Nanus stage version have been created and performed since The Phantom Tollbooth was first published.

Quotes

"You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in a pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."

External links

• Phantom Tollbooth Novel Study
• "The road to Dictionopolis" - interview with Norton Juster
• Excerpts from the Phantom Tollbooth