Curious George

Curious George is a convoluted tale of kidnapping, adventure, social injustice, and the mayhem that ensues when two evolutionary cultures collide. To say that the original tale of Curious George is far-fetched is to bring an American Classic into scrutiny under which its assertions will not hold up. Indeed, one must not only suspend disbelief to swallow the occurrences, but one's knowledge of the natural world must be subsumed in fanciful claims of simian comprehension and behavior.

In the case of Curious George, the monkey, we learn that his downfall is his curiosity. It's a classic case of blaming the victim. Because he is curious about a new object in his surroundings, it is his fault that he is kidnapped. What kind of message does this send to our children? The messages of "don't look into new things" and "if you do look into new things, bad things will befall you" are not helpful.

We open with a classic human depiction of the happy monkey. Swinging on a vine, in a tree, smiling, and eating a peeled banana, with flowers and butterflies. However, as George has no tail, I believe he would be classified as an ape, so we are sending an incorrect scientific information to our children as well.

The Man With the Yellow Hat is an interesting character in American literature. As the story seems to think that it is told from the monkey's perspective, the main human character in the story has no name, only a descriptor (How George himself has a name is never explained), and his interest in the monkey is simple: "What a nice little monkey... I would like to take him home with me." Aside from the fact that this betrays TMWTYH's nine-year-old stimulus-response/want-get attitude, who the crap does he think he is? Not to put too fine a point on it. This book gives the reader the idea that, not only can a person of apparently no credentials basically steal a wild monkey, that person apparently only requires a big yellow hat and a drawstring bag to accomplish said feat, provided, of course, that the dumbass monkey in question is curious and possibly has a fetish for headwear.

And then, once you have the monkey in a bag, it would appear that the government of "Africa," which appears to be a homogeneous blob of which our former vice presidential candidate would be proud, requires no paperwork or legal maneuvering to remove said monkey from its jurisdiction.

As is often the case in stories told from either an animal's perspective or a child's, the grown-ups in this story are almost preternaturally stupid or ineffective. TMWTYH explains George's situation to him, revealing the fact that he is clearly a bounty hunter for a zoo, and admonishes the monkey to "run along and play, and don't get into trouble." Preternaturally stupid.

This is clearly his first Monkey Job, for those statements, when voiced to monkeys, or children, are incongruous and incomprehensible. The fact that he 1) says this to a monkey, 2) expects his wishes to be carried out to said monkey, and 3) is saying this to a monkey he stole because he thought it was "nice," gives us a clue to TMWTYH's nationality. He's clearly an American.

Once in America, George is saturated, briefly, in the privilege of the White Male: a meal with spirits, an after dinner pipe, pajamas, and a warm bed. Methinks TMWTYH has done this before, just perhaps not with monkeys. He has quite the set up.

Leaving the monkey unsupervised on the ship led to a Monkey Overboard situation, and leaving him unsupervised at home leads to a Monkey Imprisoned situation. In this author's America, a monkey is thrown in jail for accidentally calling the fire department (He was curious. Curiosity lands you in prison). Interestingly enough, it is the Fire Department's embarrassment, more than any illegal action on the part of George (though it is unclear to me how often human legal codes are applied to nonhuman animals), that causes his incarceration, revealed by their comment, "You fooled the Fire Department. We will have to shut you up where you can't do any more harm." Which means: "We will have to shut you up so you cannot make us look like idiots again." How like a quasi-governmental agency. Benjamin Franklin would be proud.

George escapes from prison, and in a series of misadventures that includes the scientifically spurious act of being lofted away by a bunch of balloons, he winds up back in the hands of TMWTYH, who was apparently unaware of George's absence until that point.

We are supposed to believe that it is a happy ending when George is placed in the zoo, but I sense that the tale of Curious George is not over...

"Curious George" by H.A. Rey
Scholastic Book Services, 1941