 Cover of the First edition | |
| Author | Robert Coover |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Abner Graboff |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Parody |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | August 1, 1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 88 |
| ISBN | 978-0-670-56309-8 |
A Political Fable is a 1980 novella by Robert Coover. It was originally published, in slightly different form, in New American Review in 1968, under the title "The Cat in the Hat for President" and re-released under that same title in 2017.
Coover wrote the story during the time he wrote The Public Burning and finished it in 1967. He submitted the story to his editor Hal Scharlatt at Random House. Random House was also the publisher of Dr. Seuss and this parody of one of their most important authors and characters was strongly rejected: Coover was warned to not even try to publish the story anywhere. [1] "Dr. Seuss was a multimillion dollar business for Random House, and they were taking no chances. ...There were no photocopiers in those days. Two typed carbon copies were about max for readability. I had sent the original and one carbon copy to Hal, kept the other one for myself. Hal didn't hesitate. He slipped his carbon to his friend Ted Solotaroff, editor of the new New American Review, who had already printed one of my stories in his second issue. 'The Cat' appeared there that autumn in the fourth issue, just ahead of the elections." [2]
Dr. Seuss was asked to illustrate it. [3]
The story was eventually published in hardcover by Viking Press in 1980, and published in paperback in 2017, with a new introduction by Coover, by Foxrock Books, the publishing arm of the Evergreen Review. The lead quotation is the story of Clark, taken from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish , which appears with the permission of Random House.
Mr. "Soothsayer" Brown, political kingmaker, narrates the story of how his party, certain to lose the upcoming U.S. presidential election against an extremely popular incumbent, finds itself transformed out of nowhere at their convention by the arrival of the Cat in the Hat, with the slogan "i can lead it all by myself". [4] All set to nominate Riley and Boone, the better to run them again in four years, news of the Cat arrives, preceded by his maverick cheerleaders Ned and Joe. There follows seemingly endless merriment without any grown-ups in charge. Not even the Cat's legendary clean-up machine is sufficient. But the Cat wins just about everyone's favor.
Brown is a hold-out, though, and is disappointed that his long-term friend Governor Sam has switched over to the Cat. A meeting is arranged between Brown and Clark, the Cat's chief spokesman and campaign manager. They talk political philosophy, and Brown is helpless in the face of Clark's cynicism. At the nomination, the Cat rides in on roller skates, carrying a rake, with a cake, and so on, topped by the fish in the fishbowl who is scolding the Cat. The Cat falls down, and the bowl floods the entire convention, and everyone (except the Cat and Clark) end up inside the fish. Thinking quickly, Brown has everyone yell "VOOM", [5] and out they all go.
The national campaign, with Sam (naturally called Sam-I-am) as vice presidential nominee, starts to the Cat's easy advantage. However, the Cat cannot control himself, and eventually manages to offend just about everyone with his antics. At a rally, Brown, Joe, and Ned are tarred-and-feathered, Sam is assassinated, and the Cat is captured by a mob and tied upside down. Try as they might, the mob cannot get the Hat off. They settle for skinning him alive, then roasting and eating him.
In the end, Brown's party wins, running Riley and Boone as originally planned, playing up the Cat as a martyr. Brown himself is the new Attorney General. He has one major fear. Clark is rumored to have recovered the Hat. And there are 26 more cats rumored to be inside the Hat. [5]
In addition to the Cat and the scolding fish, other Dr. Seuss characters are alluded to.
The book is dedicated to Coover's two daughters: "For Diana and Sara: We read it all by ourselves...". The copyright is in the name of the two daughters.
...the sheer awful exuberance of the central absurdity here—which somehow, paradoxically, tempers Coover's naked loathing with Seuss' more good-natured mania—works to perfection: a devastating, across-the-board swipe at presidential imagery and campaign hype, perhaps even righter for Election '80 than it was for the more issue-centered nightmares of '68.
— Kirkus Reviews [8]
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American children's author and cartoonist. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.
The Cat in the Hat is a 1957 children's book written and illustrated by American author Theodor Geisel, using the pen name Dr. Seuss. The story centers on a tall anthropomorphic cat who wears a red and white-striped top hat and a red bow tie. The Cat shows up at the house of Sally and her brother one rainy day when their mother is away. Despite the repeated objections of the children's fish, the Cat shows the children a few of his tricks in an attempt to entertain them. In the process, he and his companions, Thing One and Thing Two, wreck the house. As the children and the fish become more alarmed, the Cat produces a machine that he uses to clean everything up and disappears just before the children's mother comes home.
Horton Hears a Who! is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss. It was published in 1954 by Random House. This book tells the story of Horton the Elephant and his adventures saving Whoville, a tiny planet located on a speck of dust, from the animals who mock him. These animals attempt to steal and burn the speck of dust, so Horton goes to great lengths to save Whoville from being incinerated.
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is a 1958 children's book written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss and published by Random House. In this book, a sequel to The Cat in the Hat (1957), the chaos-causing title character leaves a pink stain in the family bathtub, which spreads around the house as the children try to get rid of it, until the cat unveils a series of increasingly small cats from beneath his hat, the smallest of which resolves the problem.
Philip Dey Eastman was an American screenwriter, children's author, and illustrator.
The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss is an American children's puppet television series based on characters created by Dr. Seuss, produced by The Jim Henson Company. It aired from October 13, 1996, to December 28, 1998, on Nickelodeon. It combines live puppets with digitally animated backgrounds, and in its first season, refashioning characters and themes from the original Dr. Seuss books into new stories that often retained much of the flavor of Dr. Seuss' own works.
The Butter Battle Book is a rhyming story written by Dr. Seuss and published by Random House on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story: specifically, a parable about arms races in general, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons in particular. The Butter Battle Book was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
The Grinch is a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss. He is best known as the main character of the 1957 children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! He has been portrayed and voiced by many different actors, including Boris Karloff, Zero Mostel, Hans Conried, Bob Holt, Walter Matthau, Anthony Asbury, Jim Carrey, Rik Mayall, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matthew Morrison and David Howard Thornton.
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I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and first published by Random House on November 12, 1978. In the book, the Cat in the Hat shows his son Young Cat the fun he can get out of reading, and also shows that reading is a useful way of gaining knowledge, and the thrill of the ways to read.
Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 3–9, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife Helen Palmer Geisel. Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957), whose title character appears in the brand's logo. Cerf compiled a list of 379 words as the basic vocabulary for young readers, along with another 20 slightly harder "emergency" words. No more than 200 words were taken from that list to write The Cat in the Hat. Subsequent books in the series were modeled on the same requirement.
Dr. Seuss on the Loose is an American animated musical television special, first airing on CBS on October 15, 1973, and was sponsored by Nestlé. The special is hosted by The Cat in the Hat, who introduces animated adaptations of the Dr. Seuss stories The Sneetches, The Zax and Green Eggs and Ham. Allan Sherman reprised his role as the voice of The Cat in the Hat from the 1971 television special. Dr. Seuss on the Loose was Sherman's final project. He died a little over a month later on November 20, 1973. The special became a popular annual repeat for most of the decade until its last CBS showing on July 12, 1979.
Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and first published by Random House in 1970.
The Cat in the Hat is an American animated musical television special originally broadcast March 10, 1971 on CBS. It was based on the 1957 Dr. Seuss children's story of the same name, and produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises. With voices by Allan Sherman and prolific vocal performer Daws Butler, this half-hour special is a loose adaptation of the book with added musical sequences.
Helen Marion Palmer Geisel, known professionally as Helen Palmer, was an American children's writer, editor, and philanthropist. She was also the Founder and Vice President of Beginner Books, and was married to fellow writer Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, from 1927 until her death.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, published over 60 children's books over the course of his long career. Though most were published under his well-known pseudonym, Dr. Seuss, he also authored over a dozen books as Theo. LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone.
The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories is a collection of seven illustrated stories by children's author Dr. Seuss published by Random House on September 27, 2011. Though they were originally published in magazines in the early 1950s, they had never been published in book form and are quite rare, described by the publisher as "the literary equivalent of buried treasure". The stories were discovered by Charles D. Cohen, a Massachusetts dentist and a Seuss scholar and biographer, who also wrote an introduction to the collection.
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Dr. Seuss Enters., L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc. 109 F.3d 1394 is a copyright lawsuit where the court determined if a copy of an original work’s artistic style, plot, themes, and certain key character elements qualified as fair use. Penguin Books published a book titled The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice that use the artistic style, themes and characteristics of Dr. Seuss books to tell the story of the O. J. Simpson murder case. Dr. Seuss Enterprises accuse the publisher of copyright and trademark infringement.