On a Critical Reading of...

[gnomi]

Sandra Boynton's Hippos Go Berserk, some questions:

1. Where did the helicopter come from?
2. Why would two hippos agree to pull the carriage going west?
3. How did the seven hippos get into the sack? And how did the sack get to the house?
4. Shouldn't the one hippo all alone just join Netflix?

(These questions arose following multiple readings of the original text.)

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

1) A Secret Service Hippo brought it during the party, for purposes of secure hippo removal thereafter.

2) Because they can.

3) They're friends with those clowns who know how to fit into Volkswagens, and learned their secrets.

4) He can't type with those toes.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Rashi had the same questions.

[fauxklore]

Re: question #3, it is well established that hippos, when scared, run towards the water. The sack was in the way and they ended up inside it. Then they couldn't see, so when they kept running and pulling the sack along with them.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

This book gets mentioned a lot in the yuletide IRC channel around the fiction submission deadline: channel mods are called hippos.

[gem225.livejournal.com]

Now I'm going to have to find this book and read it so that I know what you're talking about. Yay! :-D

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hippos Go Berserk! (http://www.amazon.com/Hippos-Go-Berserk-Sandra-Boynton/dp/0689834349/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284904016&sr=1-1#reader_0689834349)

[madfilkentist]

Questions 2, 3, and 4 sound as if they should be preceded by "I think so, Brain, but..."

You're not alone

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I tend to ask similar questions myself, when I read Boynton books too many times.

Hippos Go Berzerk, by the way, was written (I think) in '77. Well, well, well before Netflix.