Bowdlerized Books Presents: Excerpts From The Lorax, Abridged Version

We at Bowdlerized Books love literature. That much is certain and cannot be disputed. We live for the moment we read a great book and our minds start swirling as if suddenly activating parts of our brains that have atrophied. It is the richness and depth of the great masters that sends us into the sky, mentally swooning at the texture and complexity of classic literature. It’s exactly this complexity that, in turn, inspired us to establish Bowdlerized Books. New books are great. They are tomorrow’s canon, but it’s important for us to preserve the classic novels that serve as the foundation for us all.

But therein lies the problem. People are growing dumber. We all have a bit of Neanderthal in us and that beast within is rising up against civilized man, taking control of us and forcing us to embrace our baser instincts. For instance, how many of you are reading this site after surfing the internet for pornography? Uh huh. Well, I hope you washed your hands. After visiting NaughtyNaughtyButtBandits.com and  DirtyDancingWithDirtyDirtySluts.org*, your mind is not in any shape to read Tolstoy’s sensitive rendering of the human condition in War & Peace. I bet you found the phrase “the human condition” hopelessly naïve and silly. Your cynicism feeds your apathy which dulls your senses and feeds your stupidity.

We understand and are not judging. This is why Bowdlerized Books proudly salutes publishers who are working hard to bring classic literature by cutting out all that damn classicness: A Moby Dick without distracting chapters on whaling! Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer devoid of offensive racism that might start awkward conversations and hurt people’s feelings! Great Gatsby without all that confusing Greatness!

But those efforts, as bold as they are, do not go far enough! We submit that more books need to be chopped down to size for the modern reader and we won’t rest until every work of classic literature is razed, until every extraneous word, character and sub-plot is removed and dashed into the dustbin of history.

Yes, the modern high school student is not equipped to read Huck Finn as Twain intended it, but it starts before that. The modern  elementary student is also having a tough time with the overly complicated and confusing books of Dr. Seuss, putting classic and delightful works such as, Scrambled Eggs Super!, Hop on Pop and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket out of reach for the average 8-year-old.

This is why the first title from our new line of children’s books will be Seuss’s dense and atmospheric environmental thriller, The Lorax. The story of a lush forest brought to environmental collapse by a greedy industrialist is an important one in this time of Global Climate Change. It is essential, we felt, that young readers understand Seuss’s message as clearly as possible.

Gone are the complicated vocabulary words such as rippulous, Snuvv and gruvvulous. This reader finds such words archaic and difficult to parse. We could not even locate them in any dictionary we consulted. We would never accuse such an accomplished writer as Dr. Seuss of making up words, but why burden the modern elementary school student with seldom used words from another generation? We replaced those words with rippled, pocket and…well, to tell you the truth, no one here was sure, what the good doctor was getting at with gruvvulous. None of us here have Ph.ds like the learned Dr. Seuss, so that one is lost to time unless a dear reader out there would like to enlighten us.

Also gone are references to old technology such as the Whisper-Ma-Phone, which as far as we can tell, went out of use sometime in the early 1970s. The odd harem-like relationship between the Lorax and the Brown Barbaloots and the Swomee-Swans, we felt, was a bit much for modern children so that has also been toned down.

Here are some examples from the book:

The Lorax was a gopher-like animal who lived in a tree. The Once-ler arrived one day and chopped down said tree. That really made the Lorax mad.

“Say Mr. Once-ler

Why you chop down my home?

Keep it up

And I’ll put one in your dome.”

As you can see, we toned down the author’s rhyming structure, which often muddles the message for youngsters raised on Yo Gabba Gabba, The Backyardigans and Ni hao, Kai-lan—whatever the hell that is. As the story progresses, we see the Once-ler continue to pollute and steal resources until the community is sucked dry of all native flora. All the animals leave, even the Lorax.

Here we present Seuss’s moving conclusion with its dramatic message intact and just a bit clearer. The Once-ler, older and wiser, explains the true meaning of the Lorax’s message:

As the pollution worsened, The Lorax split, leaving behind a plaque that read “UNLESS.” And you know what that means? Unless, you people don’t get up and start writing letters to your senators and your representatives, the environment will get worse and humanity is doomed. And it’s all because of Global Warming, which is undoubtedly a real thing and definitely caused by human and Once-ler activity. What a shame.

Our version is much more striking and direct than Seuss’s, which reads: “UNLESS someone like you/cares a whole awful lot,/nothing is going to get better/It’s not.”

As you can see, gone is the rhyming verbiage, but Seuss’s magic remains.

We can hear the detractors now: What about the author’s intentions? Where is the beauty in the language? Blah. Blah. Blah.

These people are living in a different time. A time before the hegemony of Elmo, the Muppet who serves as the patron saint of dumbing-down. If there were a dumbing down committee, Elmo would head it. Our detractors don’t realize that Seuss and all other classic authors just want people to understand their visions. Damn the language. Had Seuss composed the Lorax in 2011, this is the book he would have written. Just as if Twain had written Huck Finn in 2011 he would have changed all the niggers to niggas. This sort of updating is the least we as modern people can do to preserve these author’s visions.

These books, keep in mind, in no way replace the originals. Readers can still pick up the archaic version of The Lorax if they prefer. When children reach the age of 18 or 19, they can appreciate the nuances of Seuss’s language, but we just want the author’s work to continue being read by children and adults alike and we will make sure that happens even if we have to destroy Seuss’s books in the process.

Soon we will be bringing out many other streamlined classics, such as Goodnight, Gorilla and Goodnight, Moon, both of which are too verbose for today’s pre-schoolers.

Join us next week when we present excerpts from our abridged Cat in the Hat. Here is a sample:

Rainy day in house.

Surprise! Strange feline arrives.

Wears hat. Brings pain. Leaves.

Oh, wait, that’s the whole thing.

*What a shame that many of you pointed your browsers to these web addresses in order to catch a glimpse of a naked naughty butt, some intercourse or the uncloaked breast of a dirty dancing slut.

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Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.