Well, this wasn't remotely what I expected! Going in, I didn't know anything about the story, but I did know it had been adapted to film in 1970 and I'll get to see that at some point for my Make It a Double project at Apocalypse Later, because Butch Patrick of 'The Munsters' fame chose it as one of two movies from his filmography for me to review. If I had any expectations, then they stemmed from "phantom" being in the title, so pictured something 'Mad Monster Party'-esque. Needless to say, that's not what this is.

In fact, it's an unusual title because the tollbooth of the title has nothing to do with ghosts and only appears at the beginning and end of the book as a gateway. It shows up in Milo's bedroom as a package without any explanation and it allows him to enter the Lands Beyond. He spends a long while there, going on a series of quirky adventures, before returning home again through the tollbooth to find that he's only been gone for an hour. He has every intention of using it for further adventures but, after getting home from school the next day, finds it gone with a note that suggests that he doesn't need it anymore and it'll move on to someone who does.

The point of the title, I believe, is that the tollbooth doesn't actually exist, so "phantom" meets the definition of "an image that appears only in the mind". At least, that's my interpretation at this point. I think it's a representation of a realisation, the journey that Milo takes really being one inside his own head to reevaluate what he thinks of the world around him. And, as we begin, he's bored with the whole thing.

Life is boring. School is boring. His bedroom is boring. Everything that he could do with his time is boring. He's utterly blind to the possibility that anything could ever be interesting. And so the tollbooth appears. His choosing to go through it, driving a small electric automobile, is the first sign of inquisitiveness he shows and the adventures he has in the Lands Beyond teach him to see things in a different way. Suddenly, things are interesting. In modern language, this phantom tollbooth is a two-hundred-and-fifty-page lightbulb moment.

More importantly to me, it's a lightbulb moment that's obviously inspired by writers like Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear or indeed Martin Gardner, people who played with words and numbers for the sheer fun of it, and that makes it a sheer delight to read. I blitzed through this book in a single session and got so wrapped up in it that I failed to take any notes whatsoever. Initially, of course, Milo doesn't remotely believe that driving through the tollbooth he's just constructed—it arrives in kit form—is going to take him anywhere but it does, so playing is just playing along.

He's shocked to find that it does, as he's suddenly driving down an "unfamiliar country highway" to Dictionopolis, the place he chose at random on the tollbooth's map before setting off. Or, at least, he thinks it ought to, but now has second thoughts, so he stops at the first house he finds to be sure. It's called Expectations and the Whether Man who rushes out to greet him doesn't seem particularly helpful. Or so it seems to someone who's bored with everything and doesn't think about anything.

"I don't know of any wrong road to Dictionopolis," the Whether Man tells him, "so if this road goes to Dictionopolis at all, it must be the right road, and if it doesn't it must be the right road to somewhere else, because there are no wrong roads to anywhere." And just in case you still thought that was a typo after my using it twice, it isn't. "After all, it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be." Milo thinks he's insane, but the underlying point he makes is that "Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going."

And that should give you an idea of what you're in for with 'The Phantom Tollbooth'. There are people who will read this single chapter with the Whether Man in Expectations and put down the book because it's utterly ridiculous. Ironically, they're the very same people for whom this book was written and they really need to read it just in case it can become a lightbulb moment for them too. Then there are people who will find this chapter so delightful that they leave it a little bit happier for the experience and, by the time they've finished the book, they'll sport a grin so wide it escapes their face.

It really doesn't matter what else happens, because that's all you need if, like me, you hadn't a clue what this book was about. You've already made up your minds whether you'll seek this out to read for the first time (or take it down off your favourite shelf once more for a fiftieth time through). Or, of course, not, in which case you're missing out on a lot more than just this book.

However, just because I can, I'll point out that what follows is soon framed as a quest. Milo is in the Kingdom of Wisdom, which has been split into two halves with a capital each. Dictionopolis is the capital of the half ruled over by King Azaz the Unabridged, who's all about letters and the words that they can become, if they're not being eaten as food. The other half is ruled over by his brother, the Mathemagician, who lives in the capital of Digitopolis, where numbers are the beginning and end of everything.

You can imagine why there's a schism but, just in case, it came about because Azaz is convinced that words are more important than numbers but the Mathemagician believes the precise opposite. They bickered about it long and loudly enough that their adopted sisters, Rhyme and Reason, settlers of all disputes, decided rather diplomatically, that both were equally important. Thus the two brothers exiled the two sisters to the Castle in the Air and, since then, there has been no rhyme and no reason in the land.

Therefore the only thing Milo can do, with his new companions, a watchdog called Tock—he has an alarm clock on each side—and the Humbug—a professionally, disagreeable human-size insect—is to travel to the Castle in the Air and bring back Rhyme and Reason to the land of Wisdom. It's a dangerous journey but also a delightful one in which Milo learns to use his imagination to understand, to solve puzzles and just for the sheer fun of it. By the time he's done, he's figured out puns, riddles and tautologies, some of which are crucial to achieving his quest.

I could list my favourite moments but they comprise most of the book. If I had to choose just one, then, from the standpoint of my gut, I'd probably choose the man who lives in a house with four doors. Milo knocks on all four of them and meets in turn the world's smallest giant, the world's tallest midget, the world's thinnest fat man and the world's fattest thin man. Needless to say, they're all the same man. That's the best perspective joke I've read since Douglas Adams.

From an emotional standpoint, though, I'd have to choose the moment in which Milo takes the place of Chroma the Great and conducts the sunrise. Chroma is "conductor of color, maestro of pigment, and director of the entire spectrum." He leads his orchestra all day long thus bringing colour to the world, but needs a nap, so asks Milo to wake him at 5:23am. Instead Milo conducts the orchestra himself and gets it so horribly wrong that an entire week passes from 5:22am to 5:27am. But what a rush! I am now eager to see how this plays out in the movie.

I've only scratched the surface of this book and, in keeping with its glorious wordplay; even did that literally just to say that I could. Open your minds and leap headlong through the Phantom Tollbooth and have the time of your lives! If you need to, of course. ~~ Hal C F Astell