Max and Moritz Book

Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz (not only an enduring and popular children's literature classic that is still in current print in Germany after more than 150 years, but is also considered amongst the forerunners of the comic book and thus of course the graphic novel), presents with rollicking rhyming verses (accompanied by the author's vivid, often outrageously intense illustrations) the nasty pranks of two young boys and their final (and in my humble opinion) more than well-deserved fateful demise (for the presented and depicted pranks are, one and all, not merely mischievous, they are inherently destructive and imbued with viciousness, with violence for simply its own sake, or at the very least, they do tend give rise to the latter, in other words, Max and Moritz do not simply engage in practical jokes and destructive pranks, their antics also seem to all too often engender more of the same by both them and others).

Now personally, while Max und Moritz has never been either a favourite childhood read or reading memory, I did in fact rather enjoy having the book read to me as a youngster, although unlike my siblings, who seemed to find the two antagonists (Max and Moritz) and their antics quite massively funny and entertaining, ALL of my sympathies were as a rule with their hapless victims, but especially with the tailor, the teacher and poor Uncle Fritz (although I do have to say that any and all sympathy I might have originally entertained for the Widow Bolte and the loss of her chickens and rooster was quite totally erased when she automatically assumed that her poor dog had absconded with the plucked chicken carcasses and then beat him mercilessly for something he did not do, this being in my opinion pretty well quite as nasty and violent as Max and Moritz had been towards her and her poultry).

Wilhelm Busch, much like his contemporary Heinrich Hoffmann (of Der Struwwelpeter fame) breaks and actually very clearly and vehemently ruptures with the popular philosophy of the early 19th century that children in their "natural" state are supposedly both innocent and thus perfection (which ideal is in stark contrast to the concept of childhood that had been promoted in the latter part of the 18th century, where children, including literary children, are for the most part seen and depicted as miniature adults to be moulded and shaped at will). And thus, one can and really should proclaim that with their generally rebellious children, colourfully realistic and often also wildly imaginative illustrations, as well as their easily memorised and fun rhyming schemes (and often gruesome, in one's face content and themes), both Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz and Heinrich Hoffmann's Der Struwwelpeter totally and utterly break with and destroy both the late 18th and early 19th century traditions of perceived childhood.

However, while in Hoffmann's Der Struwwelpeter, typical representations of bad (or rather assumed and approached as problematic) childhood behaviours such as thumb sucking, playing with matches, being a fidgeter, being a fussy eater etc. are depicted and criticised (with often dire consequences and outcomes for the children, the characters presented), Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz actually takes things much much further, as both antagonists, as both Max and Mortiz exhibit (and right from the very onset, I might add) an inherently and obvious naturally nasty streak; they are by their very nature maliciously mischievous, and simply and utterly mean-spirited in almost every conceivable way. And thus, most if not even ALL of Max and Moritz's pranks are not simply practical jokes, are not just silly fun and games; they are vicious, they are violent, they are even potentially lethal (and with regard to the first prank, for the Widow Bolte's unfortunate chickens and rooster, the antics of Max and Mortiz are indeed both torturous and deadly, as they slowly and painfully choke on the bread and strings Max and Moritz have given them). Furthermore, although neither the tailor nor the teacher end up dying because of the pranks played on them by Max and Moritz, these could very well have had a lethal outcome, as the tailor nearly drowns and the teacher's face is permanently scarred (because the two boys filled his pipe with gunpowder).

Now I have always found it rather strangely problematic that especially many literary theorists and critics seem to be of the opinion that the end of Max und Moritz (where Wilhelm Busch has Max and Moritz being ground into grain and consumed by the miller's ducks) is somehow to be considered as more violent and infinitely more sadistic than any and all of the pranks the two boys have engaged in, and that therefore, both Max and Moritz are to be seen as primarily victims of adult society. True, none of the two boys' antics and behaviours have in fact resulted in humans being killed (although the same cannot be said with regard to the Widow Bolte's poultry). But really and truly, the fact that no humans are indeed killed during Max and Moritz's antics and pranks, that is in my opinion really and truly secondary and simply luck and good fortune, as the threat and possibility of death is definitely present with both the gunpowder in the pipe prank Max and Moritz play on the teacher and equally with the attempted drowning of the tailor. Max and Moritz are perhaps to a certain point punished (and yes, annihilated) because they and their pranks and antics violate established adult society, and adult behavioural norms (and their demise also depicts that at least on some level, Max and Moritz are to be seen as the symptoms of society, of adult routines and adult life, as seen for instance not only with regard to their own demise, but also with regard to how both the Widow Bolte and Uncle Fritz react with violence and physical rage to their plight, with the widow viciously beating her innocent dog and rudely awakened Uncle Fritz killing and smashing the June bugs crawling over and in his bed). However, Max and Moritz are also individuals in their own right, and as such, they are clearly and obviously depicted as being viciously nasty and sadistic by nature (and with their pranks basically having reaped what they have deliberately and callously sown). They ruthlessly and with glee kill if not actually deliberately torture the Widow Bolte's chickens, they nearly cause the tailor's death by drowning and it is simply good fortune that the teacher does not get burned to death when he tries to smoke his gunpowder infused pipe. Yes, the ending of Max und Mortiz is harsh, potentially sadistic and definitely violent, but considering the inescapable fact and truth that the majority of Max and Moritz's pranks and antics are equally thus, or at least could and should be regarded as similarly and potentially thus (with a rather consistent possibility of lethal outcomes envisioned), the final act of adult frustration and revenge on the two boys also reflects the pranks of Max and Moritz and vice versa.

And it is therefore also both more than a bit facile and lazily convenient to claim that Max and Moritz are simply and for the most part either symptoms or victims of an authoritative society, and that both antagonists are present in Max und Moritz to primarily and for all intents and purposes unmask societal hypocrisy and dual standards. For while Wilhelm Busch definitely paints society and especially adult society as at best somewhat majorly problematic, I for one also firmly believe that the author has basically and with considerable glee created and depicted two inherently and by nature loathsome and vicious individuals, two vile little boys who would, even if they were situated and living in a paradisal, non authoritative, utopian society act and react with nastiness, vileness and subterfuge, with blatant animosity to all and sundry (as while there is definitely and obviously abundant societal criticism present and inherent within both Wilhelm Busch's words, his rhyming verses and his accompanying illustrations, first and foremost, Max and Moritz appear as two clearly and basically incurably vicious little monsters, whose only goal is their own satisfaction, whose only purpose in life seems to be to make their fellow man, their neighbours, their family members, whomever, as miserable as possible).

Due to the graphic content and nature of Max und Moritz (not to mention the realistic and often brutal descriptiveness of the accompanying illustrations), Max und Moritz and actually much of Wilhelm Busch's literary oeuvre as a whole have often been and are sometimes still regarded as a bit askance and with trepidation (and especially Max und Moritz was in many areas of Germany, Austria and Switzerland considered both inappropriate and often censored until well into the early to middle 20th century). And some critics, but especially educators (teachers, professors) have indeed actively worried that the pranks perpetrated by Max and Moritz (and that until the very end of the book, there are no punishments and consequences whatsoever depicted for either either) would render especially young boys insubordinate and unmanageable (and even the fact that Max and Moritz do meet their end and doom by being ground up as grain and consumed by a flock of ducks used to be seen as inherently problematic by especially teachers, as the ending was considered as too outrageous and too exaggerated, read as too fantastical to be believed or be seen as a legitimate cautionary note). And there have even and sadly, unfortunately also been a select few so-called literary theorists and analysts who have tried to somehow cast blame at Wilhelm Busch and his literary work (and the popularity of the same) for the Third Reich, for German civilians rather readily accepting the Nazis (well, I guess this latter concept would have been a considerably easier and less painful manner of explaining why National Socialism happened and why Hitler was so easily and quickly able to consolidate his power than to actually consider and try to analyse what actually transpired and how the early 20th century, and for example, the aftermath of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles most likely also very much helped to prepare the road to Nazism, to Adolf Hitler and his despicable ilk).

With regard to the text of Max und Moritz itself, the presented and utilised rhyme scheme is flowing, and the words, the vocabulary choices featured are both entertaining and still after more than 150 years, not at all old-fashioned, both reading and feeling wonderfully and entertainingly contemporary and fresh in both scope and general feel. Now in Julia Eccleshare's 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz is considered suitable for children above the age of five or so, and that really does make abundant sense to and for me. For even though Max und Moritz is indeed often read with and to children younger than five years of age (I think I was probably around three years of age the first time my mother read it to me), both the text and the content (as well as the often minutely graphic and in one's face accompanying pictures) really do make this classic of German children's literature too potentially problematic and intense for the very very young (and in my opinion, care should also be taken introducing Max und Moritz to very sensitive, easily frightened children, as some, as in fact many of the depicted and featured pranks and especially the illustrations of said pranks are or at least can be potentially much disturbing). But I am indeed and in retrospect also more than intensely happy that Max und Moritz seems to never have been abridged or "sanitised" (as while the story is potentially disturbingly problematic and yes, dated, it does paint an interesting and enlightening portrait of late 19th and early 20th century small town Germany, perhaps of Western Europe and is also just rather subversively fun).

And now finally (and yes, I do mean finally), Max und Moritz is indeed available in a multitude of English language translations (from different times and in fact from different centuries). However, as I have not read ANY of these, I do not in any way feel that I should make suggestions as to which English language translation of Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz a potential reader who does not read German fluently enough to attempt the original might consider choosing (although I have found that especially with poetry translations, the more recently a given poetic work has been translated, the better and less halting and awkward it tends to be, although that is simply with regard to my own personal reading experiences over the years, and is in no way set in stone or for that matter a scientific or literary analysis, just a general and entirely personal feeling and consideration).