The Wretched Stone

“I was happy with the book, but I knew from the instant I began that I was writing with a goal, an orientation that I’d never had before. It was partly my feelings about that book when I was done, that made me want to write something that was polemical, but also more allegorical, so that as I was telling an adventure story my message was buried a bit more. I wasn’t wearing my heart on my sleeve quite so much and I believed that it was possible to tell a story that was just a rip-roaring tale, but upon completion, you realized that it bore a message, and was, in fact, an allegory. That was The Wretched Stone. Now, nobody over 12 years old has a problem figuring out the allegory and maybe even getting to it long before the story’s complete. For them, it might feel a little polemical as well. When I get mail from younger kids, they’re still guessing about it, but they’ve often got a pretty good idea.”
— Chris Van Allsburg, extrait d’un entretien à retrouver ici.

The Wretched Stone
Chris Van Allsburg
Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1991.