The author of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, is 86 years old. He lives with his dog in Connecticut and is admittedly lonely after his partner of 50 years, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, died in May 2007. Sendak has a new children’s book out called Bumble-Ardy, about a pig who throws a wild ninth birthday party for himself. Like Sendak’s earlier works, it has dark moments and some parents could consider it too scary for a children’s book. To promote the book he’s done an unintentionally hilarious interview with UK paper The Guardian. He basically bitches about everything, and he admits he’s an old sourpuss. It’s fun to read, although I did end up wanting to give him a hug that he’d probably yell at me for. Here’s a small sample, and there’s much more at the source that’s well worth reading.

At 83, Sendak is still enraged by almost everything that crosses his landscape. In the first 10 minutes of our meeting, he gets through:

Ebooks: “I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

New York: “You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It’s too tumultuous, it’s too crazy!”

The American right: “These Republican schnooks would be comical if they weren’t not funny.”

Rupert Murdoch: “His name should be what everything is called now.” But he publishes you! “Yes! Harpers. He owns Harpers and I guess the rest of the world, too. He represents how bad things have become. But I don’t know a better house. They’re all in trouble. They’re all terrible.”

Sendak shakes his head beneath the low-beamed ceiling, in this room full of art and old rugs. “I can’t believe I’ve turned into a typical old man. I can’t believe it.” He smiles and his face transforms. “I was young just minutes ago…”

“I’m totally crazy, I know that. I don’t say that to be a smartass, but I know that that’s the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that’s fine. I don’t do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can’t not do it.” You can’t be that crazy, I say: you managed to stay in one relationship for half a century. “Yes! And he was – well. He was a man who loved music and reading. He never smoked and he died of lung cancer, utterly ridiculous. I had that friendship for a long, long time….”

Of Salman Rushdie, who once gave him a terrible review in the New York Times, he says: “That flaccid f*ckhead. He was detestable. I called up the Ayatollah, nobody knows that.” Roald Dahl: “The cruelty in his books is off-putting. Scary guy. I know he’s very popular but what’s nice about this guy? He’s dead, that’s what’s nice about him.” Stephen King: “Bullshit.” Gwyneth Paltrow: “I can’t stand her.”

He looks fleetingly sheepish. “Look, life is pretty dreadful most of the time. Even in the country that’s so pretty with the flowers and leaves and sunshine. And I was abandoned when he died! I’m alone. I feel like an old bubba. And I’m not kind all of the time, I’m not nice all the time.”

Sendak is in search of what he calls a “yummy death”. William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. “A happy death,” says Sendak. “It can be done.” He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. “If you’re William Blake and totally crazy.”

[From The Guardian]

I actually wish they’d either probed more to get explanations from Sendak as to why he hates various things, or printed more of the interview. He probably doesn’t need any justification for disliking things and people, he just does and some of it may stem from the fact that he’s alone now. I hope when I get old(er) that I’m able to bitch and moan with the best of them, but still see the good side of life. To me there is a real joy in bitching about things, though. Maybe that’s the takeaway from this interview. The dude loves to complain. Just like Goop.

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