I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew

A Dr Seuss Book Report

There are many great things and many not-great things about being a parent. One of the great things is the inroad it provides to kids’ literature.

There are many great things and many not-great things about kids’ literature. One of the great things is Dr Seuss.

The great doctor’s great brilliance comes mostly from how well he was able to embrace the nonsensical, absurd world of children. There are countless books that read like airplane seatback emergency pamphlets, with morals so garishly in plainsight they make you shudder. Kids have no patience for such juvenile propaganda and neither does the adult reading this.

Dr Seuss’s books are honest, clever, and nearly insane. The architecture is all held together with strings and on the verge of collapse. Just barely holding together, like much of the world. Wherever the story takes you, you’re left most with the fun of the ride and the lovely lilt of rhymes. And amidst this beautiful mess of surrealist nonsense and anapestic tetrameter, sometimes you come away with a life lesson so vital and fantastic, you just can’t help but smile.

I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew was published the same year as the Beatles’ Help! was released, with Seuss being at the height of his powers with three decades of hits behind him, and still a quarter-century before publishing his greatest hit, Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

Yet I’m here to profess to you that his greatest hit is a tale about trouble, written in the wonderful year of 1965.

I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew opens with one of Seuss’s typical, naïve and species-undefined characters wandering through paradise:

I was real happy and carefree and young

And I lived in a place called the Valley of Vung

Nothing ever goes wrong in the Valley of Vung, and our hero hasn’t ever experienced hardship, pain, dandruff, or taxes. Until he stubs his toe on a rock, falls off a small cliff, and lands on this butt. The tumble leads him to adopt the paranoid attitude you might after such a mishap. He stares at the ground wherever he goes. Unfortunately, a Quilligan Quail sneaks up from behind and bites our hero’s tail.

And I learned there are troubles

Of more than one kind.

Some come from ahead

And some come from behind.

Now this guy is really twisted. Unfortunately, he gets dive bombed by some Seussian birdlike mosquito thing called a Skritz, and his toe bitten by a Skrink.

Just as things are going from bad to worse and this character thinks he’s living in hell, a chap rolls along in his One-Wheeler Wubble and announces he’s heading to the City of Solla Sollew on the banks of the beautiful River Wah-Hoo, where they never have troubles! At least, very few.

The offer is tempting. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? The silver bullet, the SPANX that’ll make you feel Forever 21, the 15-minute ab workout, the trip to the cabin, the public speaking masterclass. You’ve got the Skritz at your neck and the Skrink at your toe, and you desperately want them gone. Something in your Instagram feed catches your eye and whisks you away like the chap on the One-Wheeler Wubble heading to Solla Sollew.

Where they never have troubles! At least, very few.

Maestro Seuss then spends the next 40ish pages detailing every form of hardship you can possibly imagine, making the book of Job look trifling and unimaginative in comparison. The camel pulling the One-Wheeler Wubble gets sick, the bus our hero tries to find is out of service, a terrible storm called the Midwinter Jicker descends upon the cabin he’s found, an army ambushes him when he gets caught up in a war, and onward to ∞ his troubles go.

After an epic serving of troubles, when you think the Lord Almighty or Dr Seuss himself can’t possibly wreak more havoc … our hero finally emerges from some insane tunnel with billions of birds going all the wrong way.

Then, just when I thought I could stand it no more,

By chance I discovered a tiny trap door!

I popped my head out. The great sky was sky-blue

And I knew, from the flowers, I’d finally come through

To the banks of the beautiful River Wah-Hoo!

I couldn’t be far, now, from Solla Sollew!

Cue the chorus of angels and Leonard Cohen, our man finally did it. He’s arrived: hallelujah. All this trouble must have been worth it, right? Right?

Only, guess what. There’s a problem. The doorman to the city of Solla Sollew can’t get in because an infernal little creature called a Key-Slapping Slippard has moved into the lock, and he can’t open the door any more. And he can’t kill the Slippard. It’s very bad luck to kill any Slippard, and that’s why they’re stuck.

But not to worry! The doorman has a plan. Much like a French soldier seeing the German tanks rolling over the hill, he quickly abandons his post and announces he’s heading to the city of Boola Boo Ball on the banks of the beautiful River Woo-Wall, where they never have troubles! No troubles at all!

Like the opening pair of sentences to this post, it’s sounding familiar, is it not?

Our hero has a quiet moment with himself. He’s inclined to go. He doesn’t like trouble, and there’s a place that has none of it, and that sounds pretty damn good. Especially after the saga from which he only freshly emerged. (Please see Sunk Cost Circuit Breaker for more on this matter).

But no! And this is where the Great Doctor shines in all his glory:

I started back home

To the Valley of Vung.

I know I’ll have troubles.

I’ll, maybe, get stung.

I’ll always have troubles.

I’ll, maybe, get bit

By that Green-Headed Quail

On the place where I sit.

But I’ve bought a big bat.

I’m all ready, you see.

Now my troubles are going

To have troubles with me!

And there you have it. Every Stoic, Buddhist, and other-wise lesson wrapped up in 64 pages of the littest kids’ lit in the solar system, and quite possibly the universe.

I’m not sure I’d call this a moral and it certainly isn’t in plain sight, but dwell on the troubles you willingly endure to make your troubles go away. The naïve yearning for Solla Sollew, where they never have troubles! At least very few.

If you’ve managed to get there, please send me a postcard.

For the rest of us (which I’m pretty sure is all of us), grab your bat.