05/2012

This is a 5 star book, all the way. But honestly, as a person in my 30s, it bored me just a little bit, so I gave it 4. It was so much more intellectually challenging when I was nine. I now see this was the big influence for Lemony Snickets.

You can be mad at me for hating a classic, and you can disagree with me all you want, but this book is legitimate awful. I had to read it for school and it not only bored me half to death, but it has not plot whatsoever. The main character simply runs into countless characters, learns about their life story, and moves on. The descriptions and figurative language made it sound like the author was trying too hard to win a Newberry Award or something.
I can't even believe that this book is a "classic". That makes me want to scream! There is not a single thing I like about this book. It was a little bit creepy as well as boring. I was so annoyed by this book that after reading it, I promptly stuck it in my brother's room and advised him never to touch it unless it is forced upon him against his will. If you are looking for a fun, whimsical story, read The Lost Track of Time, by Paige Britt, and never ever lay a finger on The Phantom Tollbooth.

n  “So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”n

The more I thought about it, the more I felt three stars wasn't enough. *bangs four stars*

Plot
"This beloved story -first published more than fifty years ago- introduces readers to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond.

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams. . . ."

The plot was fun. It was fast paced and hooking. It was Narnia- just twisted. It also reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. It truly deserves the title of a classic!

Writing
I was hoping it wouldn't give me Narnia vibes. See, in Narnia, the entire thing seemed to be set in the late 1800s. Here, the plot, characters, etc seemed to be set in early 2000s while the writing, in the early 1900s. It was this that lowered a star. Other then that, it was quite good.

Characters
Milo, our protagonist, was not likable. But he wasn't exactly unlikable. Basically, he wasn't relatable and didn't make his way to me. I guess brushing him off like a fly would be best.

Tock definitely is the best character. He's lovable, helpful, and encouraging, just like any dog out there. (He's on the cover along with Milo, see it?)

The humbug was one of the silliest, most annoying but somehow still funny and loveable character. It just shows his character's unique.

The entire story was a fun read and totally reccomend to people who like classics :)


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brb regressing to childhood and giving this one a reread. i’m so excited!

#2018PopsugarReadingChallenge
11. An allegory

Ban đầu tôi đã sợ quyển sách này không đúng với nội dung thử thách yêu cầu - một câu truyện ngụ ngôn - khi mà nhìn qua bìa và đọc giới thiệu tôi nghĩ ngay đến một câu truyện quá hiện đại, không giống với những câu truyện ngụ ngôn tôi từng được học trong chương trình ngữ văn ở trường. Nhưng hóa ra tôi đã nhầm to.
Tôi đã tra từ điển Oxford và đây là định nghĩa của từ allegory:
a story, play, picture, etc. in which each character or event is a symbol representing an idea or a quality, such as truth, evil, death, etc.
Và câu truyện này phù hợp. Ý tôi là hết sức phù hợp. Từng câu, từng chữ, từng nhân vật, lời nói trong câu truyện đều là phép ẩn dụ về những điều thân thuộc nhưng rất ta nghĩa trong cuộc sống như chú chó canh giữ hay chú chó thời gian Tock (watch dog) luôn canh giữ, nhắc nhở để không ai lãng phí thời gian, ý nghĩ của âm thanh, màu sắc, của những lời nói và quyết định qua người Bảo hộ âm thanh, ngài Sắc độ, ong đánh vần, vân vân... rất rất nhiều các phép ẩn dụ mà tôi không thể kể hết được, bạn chỉ có thể tự đọc, tự khám phá thôi.
Trạm thu phí quái lạ còn dày đặc các phép chơi chữ. Cứ cách vài trang tác giả lại lồng ghép khéo léo vào một phép chơi chữ của những từ đồng âm, đồng nghĩa. Lúc đọc tôi đã rất tò mò không biết bản gốc sẽ thế nào, tác giả dùng những từ ngữ gì, thật tiếc biết bao khi không được tự mình đọc bản gốc.

Nội dung câu truyện rất dễ thương về hành trình giải cứu hai cô công chúa Vần điệu và Lý tính cùng những khám phá bất ngờ và rất ngộ nghĩnh của Milo, một cậu bé ban đầu khá buồn tẻ nhưng sau chuyến đi đã trưởng thành hơn rất nhiều.
Chi tiết tôi thích nhất có lẽ là dàn nhạc của ngài Sắc độ. Một dàn nhạc không hề có âm thanh mà dàn nhạc này tạo lên những sắc màu dệt lên một buổi bình minh rất đẹp, rất huy hoàng.
Truyện còn có rất nhiều tranh minh họa rất hợp, rất đẹp. Nét vẽ của họa sĩ không hề rõ ràng, toàn bộ bức tranh là những nét vẽ rối rắm nhưng lại hết sức ngộ nghĩnh, rất hợp với nội dung câu truyện.

Trạm thu phí quái lạ khiến tôi nhớ lại một câu truyện của Việt Nam đó là Ai và Ki ở xứ sở những con số tàng hình (tôi không nhớ rõ tên truyện cho lắm) nhưng Trạm thu phí quái lạ xứng đáng ở bậc trên câu truyện kia rất nhiều, cả về nội dung và ý nghĩa.

I saw "The Phantom Tollbooth" on a list of beloved children's books, and realized I had somehow missed it when I was a kid. I listened to the audio version, narrated by actor Rainn Wilson, and thought it was delightful. The book is filled with clever wordplay and has good advice on the importance of not jumping to conclusions and watching your words (otherwise you may have to eat them!) Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes
"Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best."

"The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between."

"You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."

"You may not see it now ... but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way ... Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."

"So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible."

Everyone should read, as a fan of puns & language I loved this as a kid & loved it more when I read it again a few months ago when I found it in a box of packed books.

I recently discovered there were people who hadn't read this book. If so, read it now. This fantastical journey is delightful for all the word play as well as for the basic underlying message.

"In this box are all the words I know," he said. "Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places."

"And remember also," added the Princess of Sweet Rhyme, "that many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you'll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow."


When I started to re-read The Phantom Tollbooth a few weeks ago, I was very excited, but I was also a little bit nervous. I have a special, uncritical reverence for this book, the sort that you can only really have for books you read when you were very young. I remember every picture in this book, and I remember it being filled with words and numbers and quite a lot of joy. It was lovely. I was afraid that a re-read as an adult would leave me feeling as if it wasn't as good as I remembered (or, maybe worse, that I've just grown up into a grumpy cynic).

But instead I was greeted with the pleasant surprise that The Phantom Tollbooth is still wonderful, and - without me realizing it, really - I think it had a huge determining course on who I wound up being as a person. I can't tell you how many times I came across sections that I probably didn't even entirely understand the first time through, but which are now really central and important to me. The second quote up there is pretty much a longer version of one of my absolute favorite quotes as an adult.

The Phantom Tollbooth is funny and sad and hopeful. There are loads of puns that should be kind of dumb, but instead are endearing and fun. It's full of reverence for words and their potential power, and its just imbued all the way through with a wonder for absolutely everything in the world. Go read it! It's the best.

Is this the cleverest book of all time? I think this is the cleverest book of all time.

I so deeply enjoyed rereading this. When I was younger, I would only keep books that I would reread over and over - and I would pick up each one, seriously, an average of 4 to 6 times. I believe this absolute insanity is why I was unable to reread for the subsequent, like, 6 years. But now we're BACK. And it's been a mixed bag, but rereading this was just the greatest.

There were so many puns and allusions and metaphors I didn't understand the first (eleven) times I read it, so they made rereading this like a whole new experience. I read it in a sitting! It was such a blast.

And - it thrills me to be able to state - THAT SETTING THOUGH!!!!! God, I want to drop a visit to the Lands Beyond so badly. Don't you guys wish you could jump into books, just for a hot second? Or, at the very least, a mysterious tollbooth would be given to you to grant you passage into a mysterious kingdom filled with puns. I mean, come on.



This is only going to be a mini review because I don't even know how much I can joke about this book. I have a major soft spot for it, okay?! We all have our things.

Bottom line: Totally give this book a try. It's compelling, and clever, and short, and the characters are so cute, and the setting is so fascinating and creative and fun and amazing, and the whole thing will stick to ya like glue. I'll never be able to escape this book, and I'm not mad about it.

My feelings about this book were all over the map as I read; sometimes, I found myself annoyed, sometimes I was giggling and completely delighted, sometimes I was bored, sometimes I marveled at Juster's genius. So, it's a very difficult book for me to assign a rating to as some parts I loved and some parts I didn't. Overall, though, I understand why this is such an enduring classic and I'm very glad I read it.

Even so, I'm not exactly sure who the audience for this book is meant to be; or maybe just that there are many different levels to appreciate it, enjoying different elements at different ages? We have a child protagonist, but for most of the book I didn't find him particularly interesting or easy to relate to; he seemed almost a blank slate, and perhaps this was the point, so that we could all be Milos, wandering through the marvelous lands on the other side of the Phantom Tollbooth. But, I think that children (at least, today's children) are more used to books with a strong character that we root for and that has a very clear personality. (Maybe I shouldn't generalize about all kids, though, and just talk about those like me; I think my mom, so good about exposing us to great literature, tried reading this to me as a kid and I didn't get into it.) Also, I am not sure that most children today will grasp all of the wordplay going on in this book (the Senses Taker, for example) nor all the various deeper meanings and how and why they are so relevant to our real world (such as all the demons like Gross Exaggeration and Hopping Hindsight). Not that any of this is the fault of the book, but I did wonder a bit at it being known as a children's classic when, I think, adults will get more out of it. I am interested to hear from those who read it as a child what they related to; maybe the quest for the princesses or the fun side characters like Tock and the Humbug? Or maybe some lucky children were able to appreciate all the wordplay, too. I agree with the New York Times review that stated, "Juster's amazing fantasy has something wonderful for anybody old enough to relish the allegorical wisdom of 'Alice in Wonderland' and the pointed whimsy of 'The Wizard of Oz'."

I really loved some of the chapters and characters; they were so funny and amusing and I found myself nodding in agreement at all the little life lessons they so skillfully and subtly conveyed. Some characters were just plan delightful, such as all the members of the cabinet. And Tock was so endearing! Some, however, were more frustrating or annoying for me, such as the Confusion in the Marketplace, and the Silent Valley (I wonder what deaf people think when they read that chapter?). A few of the little side scenarios were very fun, like the Jumping to Conclusions (hilarious!) but the little bit with the man who was a Giant/Midget/Fat/Thin etc. just bored me.

As I read, I wished I had bought the book rather than got it from the library so I could highlight the many parts I loved and the fabulous quotes; so wise and witty! I think, though, that was part of my occasional frustration with the story in that sometimes I felt too much like I was being taught and not enough that I was fully involved in a story that really captivated me and wound me up in its magic. I think, though, this is party due to my taste in books as I'm not usually one to enjoy the little segments like this (admittedly, I was not a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, either (though I loved the movie!)) and usually prefer a stronger plot.

Minor frustrations aside, I still really enjoyed the book overall, even if I wasn't super compelled to pick it up each day. And I loved the ending; the chapters beginning with Castle in the Air were just lovely and brought together all the plot and character dynamics I had been hoping for throughout the book. And the last two pages; wow! I think I should copy those out to look back at them often, any time I am feeling less than inspired with life, and remember how glorious it all is!

➳ 3 ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

this was another one of those absurd, witty books that i like reading so much. it was a bit simple and childish but i enjoyed it.

the world was so unique and interesting and i’d recommend it to fans of lemony snicket and roald dahl.


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