{"id":2124,"date":"2005-04-01T00:41:37","date_gmt":"2005-04-01T05:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=2124"},"modified":"2005-04-02T01:17:03","modified_gmt":"2005-04-02T06:17:03","slug":"book-review-green-eggs-and-ham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2005\/04\/book-review-green-eggs-and-ham\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Green Eggs and Ham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theodore Geisel’s treatise Green Eggs and Ham<\/em> (Beginner Books) is an ambitious work. It seeks to unify themes of longing, friendship, anger, acceptance, and culinary conformity. In addition, the book delves into Mormon themes — as one might expect, given Geisel’s little-known affiliation with the Mormon church — including blood atonement, polygamy, eternal progression, Kolob, Facsimiles One and Two, and sugar beets. <\/p>\n

Covering all of this ground would be a hard task under any conditions. And Geisel’s attempt to do so in a mere 62 pages is breathtaking in its audacity. One must give the man credit for his gumption. And given his past success in covering similar themes in The Cat in the Hat<\/em>, I went into this book with high hopes. Ultimately, however, Geisel’s project fails, and this reviewer is left saying, “I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am.”<\/p>\n

The first thing one notices is the book’s cover. The cover illustration is a sort of “Salvador Dali meets Minerva Teichert,” in orange. The explicit Mormonness of the cover is both jarring, and also a tad discombobulating, as if to say “I’m Mormon and I’m going to write a silly book, and I double-dog-dare you to stop me.” The eclectic mix continues inside, with illustrations definitely influenced by a mix of Kandinsky and Friberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The exploration of church themes is omnipresent. For example, “would you like them here or there?” is a transparent reference to the journey of the early LDS pioneers. The difficulties of seagoing pioneers are not ignored, as the large ship portrayed on page 47 bears more than a passing resemblance to the ship Brooklyn<\/em> which early LDS immigrants used to come to California.<\/p>\n

The moral message of the book is a tough one. We see the poor, unnamed protagonist begin with a firm resolve to persevere to the end (2 Nephi 31:20). Yet, by the end of the book, this laudable goal has been completely defenestrated, as our protagonist turns to a life of egg-eating hedonism. Some have suggested that this is a morally depraved ending. However, I believe that we can view it as ironic — that is, a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, too-cool-for-you commentary on today’s decadent materialistic society. In this way, the book becomes a perfect companion to Hugh Nibley’s Approaching Zion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, the book suffers from a lack of a clear geographical base. Parts of it clearly indicate what could be termed a continental model. That is, Sam I Am and the Unnamed Protagonist (UP) appear to be in Vermont (18), Minnesota (23), and Nevada (47). Yet Sorenson has suggested that it would not be practical for UP to travel to so many places, so quickly. Thus, Sorenson suggests, what is really at work is a limited geography model, where the entire scope of the action takes place in Des Moines, Iowa. But recent reports of the discovery of both green eggs and ham in Minnesota has cast serious doubt on Sorenson’s thesis. In short, the book’s geographical ambiguity undercuts its otherwise strong message.<\/p>\n

Given its weaknesses, I cannot entirely recommend this book to our readers. However, it may appeal to certain segments. Its negative construction of the concept of green eggs and ham may be helpful for readers who are interested in apophatic theology. And its innovative use of historical allegory is commendable, and fits well within the New Mormon History school. But ultimately, I could not, would not recommend this unusual volume to the rest of our esteemed readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theodore Geisel’s treatise Green Eggs and Ham (Beginner Books) is an ambitious work. It seeks to unify themes of longing, friendship, anger, acceptance, and culinary conformity. In addition, the book delves into Mormon themes — as one might expect, given Geisel’s little-known affiliation with the Mormon church — including blood atonement, polygamy, eternal progression, Kolob, Facsimiles One and Two, and sugar beets. Covering all of this ground would be a hard task under any conditions. And Geisel’s attempt to do so in a mere 62 pages is breathtaking in its audacity. One must give the man credit for his gumption. And given his past success in covering similar themes in The Cat in the Hat, I went into this book with high hopes. Ultimately, however, Geisel’s project fails, and this reviewer is left saying, “I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}