The Lorax by Dr. Seuss: A Very Late Review

“Starring Zac Efron and Taylor Swift”

Hey, remember in 2000 when Jim Carrey decided that he wanted to paint himself green and terrify children for all eternity?  This had nothing to do with his cinematics, but Ron Howard and Hannibal Lecter decided to utilize the unearthly horror that is Jim Carrey, and 2000’s The Grinch was born.  And remember when that started a weird craze of film adaptations of seminal children’s books?  Do you remember how Danny Devito got roped into it?  Boy, do I wish I could forget.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of 2012’s The Lorax, which was made by the same company that may or may not be working on a new Super Mario Bros. movie, because we know how well that went over the first time.  The Lorax was a colorful movie, sure, with a pretty good soundtrack and some nice visuals, but it completely obliterated the message of the original material by flooding it with half-assed romances and typical Hollywood excess.  What was once a picture book about a small orange cat-thing living in tree stumps became Andy from the Office palling around with The Trashman while Zac Efron and Taylor Swift navigate awkward animated sexual tension.  I resent it for being the adaptation that it is, because I have the source material tattooed on my arm and think that it deserves better.

Originally published in 1971, The Lorax was written by Theodore Seuss Geisel, more commonly known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss.  It tells the story of a greedy businessman, the Once-ler, and his encounters with He who Speaks for the Trees, otherwise known as the Lorax.  It’s short, it’s colorful, it’s a children’s book, and you can read the entire thing online.  If you haven’t read it by now, I highly recommend it.  For a while I assumed everyone had read it, but as I’m learning that even people in the environmental club I’m in haven’t read it, I guess I assumed wrong.

I absolutely adore this book.  It was one that my parents would read to me when I was much younger, along with the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch, and turtle Hitler.  The colorful drawings, fun rhymes, bizarre made-up words, and environmentalist story all grabbed my childish attention and kept it for the rest of my life.  Much like Dr. Seuss’s other books, I think what makes it so memorable is that it’s so different from anything else.  There’s no other book like it, kid’s book or otherwise, and it’s special if only for that reason. But it isn’t just for that reason; it’s special to me because it’s what got me first tangibly interested in environmental science.

The story is essentially this: a small boy, wondering why all the plants in his town are dead, goes to ask the Once-ler for answers.  The Once-ler, who may or may not be only arms, relates his story to the boy.  The Once-ler admits to moving into the area years ago because there was an abundance of Truffula Trees, a rare species of tufted tree.  The Once-ler aims to make clothes out of them, and cuts down a tree.  But lo and behold, out of the stump pops the book’s titular character, the Lorax.  And in the original version, he is free of all traces of Danny Devito.

The Lorax tells the Once-ler that he can’t cut down the trees because the Barbaloots, a species of bear-like mammal, depend on them for food, and also the trees don’t like being hit with axes.  The Once-Ler laughs and in calls his own family, who all move to his house and start cutting down more trees to make more clothes that nobody needs.  Slowly, through pollution and a classic example of the tragedy of the commons, the Once-ler destroys the ecosystem around him and cuts down every last Truffula Tree.  He drives out all the native species and reduces the natural resources to nothing but smog and tree stumps.

Lacking the resources to continue working, and lacking the forethought to have sustainably replenished their ecological capital, the Once-ler’s business suffers total economic collapse.  His factories fall apart, and he’s left alone in his sad little world.  And the Lorax, having nothing left to stay for, takes to the skies and disappears, leaving nothing behind but a single stone reading “UNLESS.”

The Once-ler, upon relating this story to the boy from earlier, realizes the true meaning of the stone and the Lorax’s message.  He gives the boy the last seed from the last Truffula Tree, and tells him to regrow a forest with new trees.  The Once-ler understands the stones and tells the boy “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better.  It’s not.”

The text is accompanied by Seuss’s iconic drawings, of course.  The book starts with dreary purples and broken-down machinery then briefly shows the beautiful greens and blues and pinks of the Truffula trees as they were before returning to the world as it is, post-exploitation by the Once-ler and his army of axes.  The colors follow the arc of the story, but like the story, they, too, leave some hope at the end. There’s a seed of hope that all is not lost, and the Lorax may one day return.

Now, besides my doubts about the genetic stability and integrity of a forest that sprouts from one singular seed, the book’s grasp of environmental science is pretty solid.  Everything it describes, from the removal of trees to the displacement of species and peoples, are things that actually happen every day in nearly every country on the planet.  And that was something that I didn’t realize until I was older. I didn’t realize just how real this book is.  It introduced me to the grim reality of uncontrolled industry’s effects on the environment, but introduced it in a way that was understandable by, and appropriate for, children. Without things like slaughtering orangutans.

And the book does all of this without being condescending, patronizing, or worst of all, boring.  It treats its audience, even though they are children, as the rational, thinking beings that they are.  It isn’t like, say, one of those cheesy kid’s books that exists for the sole purpose of selling a book to kids.  The Lorax is more than that.  The message is real and heartfelt and the words, rhymes, and pictures are all well-chosen to keep kids engaged long after they might have grown tired.  As Seuss himself said, he wasn’t afraid of preaching.  He was afraid of being boring.

I read this book over and over again when I was younger.  It was one of my favorite books of all time.  It still is, actually.  It’s come to mean so much to me in the sense that it partially defined my childhood and who I am today.  The fact that I am so interested in the environment and protecting those who can’t speak for themselves traces itself back to this book, which served as a foundation upon which I could build my own sense of morals.

Of course, I owe as much of this to my parents as I do to Dr. Seuss, since they were the ones who read me the book.  If they’d read me something else, like, say, the bizarre logging parody of The Truax, I might be a very different person.  That I was exposed to such positive material at such a young age that ended up becoming so formative in my character attests, I suppose, to their ability as parents and the value of reading to children.  But this isn’t a review of my childhood, this is a review of a picture book for children.

Who am I kidding.  This isn’t a review, this is an excuse for me to talk about one of my favorite books of all time.  I merely claim it to be a review because it allows me to justify my ongoing love for what is ostensibly a 50-year-old poem written for toddlers.  And, I suppose, it allows me to justify having that same poem tattooed on my arm.  Permanently.

The Lorax isn’t just a kid’s book to me.  It became something more, something that has continued to define who I am and how I live my life, speaking for the trees because the trees have no tongues.  Because as the Lorax showed me, if you don’t do it, who will?  Someone has to care a lot, so why can’t it be you?

The same goes for anything, really.  If you want to see change in the world, the best course of action is being the one who strives for that change.  I’m a strong believer in the idea that to do something right you have to do it yourself, and I think it’s kind of similar to what Gandhi said that one time.  “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” spoken right before he nuked the shit out of the George Washington.  But that’s a different story.

We’re dependent upon the health of the world as much as the world is now dependent upon us.  If we aren’t too careful, it won’t matter who’s president or what team won March Madness because there won’t be anybody left to care about it.  We can’t eat money, try as we might.  There isn’t any nutritional value in it besides fiber.

Maybe that’s one of the other great things about the Lorax as a character.  He never uses violence or forces the Once-ler to do anything.  He appeals to the man’s sense of logic and compassion, even though it doesn’t work.  And the Once-ler is left to live in the world he created out of his own mistakes, which slowly fall apart around him until all he has left is a shack on top of the rotted-out shell of his industrial empire.  The consequences are real, and we’ll have to live with them.

I don’t want to live that way, where I wake up one day and ask myself, “Well, how did I get here?”  The Lorax gives me a concrete goal to strive for, to look for some injustice in the world that I can recognize and change.  Even if it’s just a kid’s book, the message is more than just for children.  It’s more powerful than most of the books for adults that I’ve read, and has stayed with me much, much longer.

It has been, and probably always will be, one of my favorite books, and I truly believe that it deserves a spot among the other great environmental books, right next to Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac.  If nothing else, it’s great fun to read, even now.  And at the end of the day, what else can you ask for out of a children’s book?

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful not, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.”  I don’t care how many times I listen to “Let it Grow.”  The book will always be better than the movie.