Statler and Waldorf, step aside. There's a new hysterical heckler in town. Maurice Sendak, author of the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are, decided to turn this recent interview into a roast of his literary peers, ebooks, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Unsurprisingly, it was glorious.
His first target was ereaders. "I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book! A book is a book." He then took aim at New York City ("You get pushed and harassed and people grope you") and Rupert Murdoch ("He represents how bad things have become").
But the piece de resistance came when he dug into entertainers. Roald Dahl? "Scary guy. I know he's very popular, but what's nice about this guy? He's dead, that's what's nice about him." Stephen King? "Bullshit." Gwyneth Paltrow? "I can't stand her." Salman Rushdie? "That flaccid fuckhead. He was detestable. I called up the Ayatollah, nobody knows that."
If Sendak's wrath is any indication, children's authors save their real bite for later years. And I don't know about you, but I can't wait to hear a seventy-year-old JK Rowling call Stephenie Meyer an idiotic twat.