Your Humble Blogger has very fond memories of The Westing Game. Reading it through this time, it didn’t work for me. Perhaps it dated badly. I’m not sure. I suspect that if I read it again in a few years, I’ll go back to liking it again.
Anyway, rather than harshing on what was once one of my very favorite books ever, I’ll just note a few things that I came across whilst Googling the Westing Game. First, I had no idea that there was a movie version ten years ago, presumably part of the Showtime After School series. It appears to be terrible, but the great thing about the user comments is that more than one person writes in to say that they haven’t seen the movie but can tell that it sucks just by the IMDB page. I mean, yes, so could I, but why would anyone bother adding a user comment to say that? Particularly as the comments already made it clear that this was neither a close adaptation nor very good in its own right. What kind of person thinks This site’s viewers will benefit from my reviews of movies I haven’t seen?
On the positive side, there is a lovely site at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the University of Madison-Wisconsin that has information on Ellen Raskin, including a sort of audio tour of the manuscript of The Westing Game. I haven’t listened to the audio, yet, but the images of her development of the design of the book are fascinating. Sadly, my copy has a very weak cover illustration, far inferior to the mansion of money on the original.
Also interesting to visit is a Westing Game site put together by 4th Grade students of River View Elementary School in Plainville, IL. There’s a lot of idiosyncratic stuff that’s fun to look at. For instance, the character page for E.J. Plum has information about wills and lawyers, some of it nearly accurate. I should warn you that the page has massive spoilers. For instance, the page for Dr. D. Denton Deere doesn’t have information about cosmetic surgery, but about neurology; the ending mentions that Dr. Deere becomes a neurologist, rather than a plastic surgeon as he expects to be throughout the book. Well, and the pages for Barney Northrup, Sandy McSouthers and Julian Eastman all mention that they are actually Sam Westing in disguise. I suppose that’s a bigger spoiler.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
In case you were being serious about the types of spoilers that the 4th grade website has about the book, you might also mention that your post, here contains the same spoilers, in the event that someone (like me) who hasn’t read the book, and generally doesn’t read spoilers that are clearly marked as such, might run across it.
peace
Matt
It was one of my favorite books, too, so I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like it this time through. 🙁
I loved all of Raskin’s books when I first encountered them, except for Figgs & Phantoms, which I didn’t really appreciate until a few years later. I’m slightly tempted to go re-read them now, but I would be sad if I didn’t like them, so maybe I’ll let them be.
Matt–
Oops.
Thanks,
-V.
😀
Well, the good news is that my memory is spotty at best, so I’m sure I’ll have forgotten the crucial fact that Doctor Fred is really a proctologist, and all the rest by the time I actually get around to reading The Easting Game.
peace
Matt
Jed–
I think my problem with rereading this one is that the various misfits are evoked in a way that to me this time through was not so much funny as emotionally wrenching. See,
Oh, um. SPOILERS. K?
See, Sydelle is so desperate for attention that she pretends to have a terminal illness to get sympathy—but she makes a friend, so it turns out OK! Grace Wexler is so desperate to fit into her imaginary whitebread American success story that she changes her name and denies her family, pushes her older daughter into a loveless marriage and belittles her more obviously Jewish younger daughter and husband—but her husband gets her drunk and screws her, so it’s OK! The older daughter is totally submissive and uncommunicative, and acts out by setting off explosives and mutilating herself—but she makes a friend, too, so it’s OK! Madame Hoo is unable to communicate with anybody and lives in terror of deportation, furtively stealing objects of minor value to try to build up a nest egg against her dreaded impoverished future in Hong Kong—but, um, it doesn’t happen! Berthe Erica Crow is a religious fanatic also running from her past, which includes having driven her daughter to suicide and the evidently spectacular break-up of her marriage with a millionaire, leaving her impoverished, friendless and still persecuted by her maniac ex-husband but she marries again, so it’s OK!
Now, having said that, of course it’s a kids book, and that’s a hijjusly unreasonable standard to use, but it’s how I felt rereading the thing. And it is to Ms. Raskin’s credit that she sneaks in a good deal of recognizable emotional fucked-up-ness in a silly and funny puzzle story. But it wasn’t fun for me this time through.
Thanks,
-V.
It really can be disappointing to revisit the fandoms of one’s youth with the benefit of an adult’s critical faculties. Thank goodness I still like “Peanuts”.
The good Peanuts, right? From the fifties? I like the earlier, funnier strips best.
Thanks,
-V.
the best book ever is fallen angels by walter dean myers anyone who reads this should get it if they dont already have it also the westing game is a little confusing but great book
awesome i should be reading this in class but i didnt want to wait so i checked spoilers!!!!!