Phantom Tollbooth Reread

Chapter 1: Milo

Milo is a boy who is bored all of the time. There is always something else he’d rather do. He thinks everything is a waste of time, especially school. He always wandered about quickly, despite never wanting to go wherever he is going. In short, Milo, despite being created in 1961, is somehow a perfect character for today’s world.

One day, he goes home and looks at all of his stuff. He notices that there is an enormous package in his room that he hasn’t seen before. The description of this package is just so perfect.

For, while it was not quite square, it was definitely not round, and for its size it was larger than almost any other big package of smaller dimension that he’d ever seen.

Inside this box is a small purple tollbooth and a map of places that he’s never heard of before. He chooses to go to a place called Dictionopolis. He gets into an electric toy car that he happened to have, and drive through the tollbooth, depositing his coin.  

Chapter 2: Beyond Expectations

Milo found himself speeding along an unfamiliar highway in the country. He comes across a house with a sign that says “Welcome to Expectations.”  A man comes from the house and introduces himself as “The Whether Man.”

Milo asks if this is the right road to Dictionopolis, and is told that if it isn’t, it must be the right road to somewhere.

They talk a little about Expectations and how you need to have expectations before you get to where you are going. It’s a lovely bit of prose.

Milo thinks that he could spend more time in Expectations, except the whether man is very strange. And as he drives away, he sees a rain cloud that is only raining on the Whether man.

He drives along and starts daydreaming. He stops paying attention to where he is going and goes right instead of left, ending up in a place called “The Doldrums, which are where nothing ever happens and nothing ever changes.” He meets the Lethargarians, who are creatures who daydream, sleep, and loiter all day. Laughing and thinking are against the law in the doldrums.  Eventually, Tock the Watchdog comes along and reminds him that to escape the Doldrums, one must think.

Tock asks to come along. He’s a dog, so he loves automobile rides.

Thoughts:

I love this book so much. It’s difficult to recap, I really just want to copy all the text and make everyone read it again. I always forget how relevant it is. I read it as a child, and I loved the adventure story. As an adult, I just love the wordplay and the message/theme.

In these first few chapters, it’s obvious that this isn’t any book. Milo has no real description. Just a boy. No age, no race, no social class or defining features. He’s just a bored kid. The box the tollbooth came in is non-descript, but described so nicely. It’s such fun language.

Tock is first and foremost, a dog. He wants to ride in the car and put his nose in the wind. LOVE IT.

Milo isn’t frightened or anything when he is transported to this magical land. He doesn’t try to turn around or anything, he just goes with it and enjoys the scenery.