by Moe Zilla

Created on: July 26, 2010

Octavio Paz won the Nobel prize for literature in 1990. But one year before his death in 1998, he received a rare treat. At the age of 84, Paz saw one of his stories converted into an illustrated children's picture book. Catherine Cowan translated and adapted the text of "My Life With the Wave," and Mark Buehner created some appropriately colorful illustrations using acrylics and oil paints.

Paz was known as a surrealist writer, and the story seems to come from a very special part of his imagination. A little boy falls in love with the waves at the seashore, and then one wave tears away from the sea, as the other waves clutch at her skirts. She catches the boy's hand, and they race together towards the sand. "My father tried to send her back, but the wave cried and begged and threatened until he agreed that she could come along."

The fugitive wave joins the family as they board the train for home, though the real appeal of the story is Paz's wonderful descriptions of the wave itself. "The wave was tall and fair and full of light," he writes. To escape the scrutiny of the train's conductor, the wave hides inside of a water cooler. And when the family arrives home, the wave rushes into their house.

"Before, she had been one wave; now she was many. She flooded our rooms with light and air, driving away the shadows with her blue and green reflections." Sometimes the story suggests this might not be a literal wave, but a metaphorical one. It fills their shadowy rooms with its light, laughter, and a smile. Even the sun enjoys dancing with the wave, and stays in the house for hours, forgetting to leave.

Mark Buehner illustrated another fanciful work - Snowmen at Night - and he uses his imagination to supply a very literal interpretation of Paz's text. In the boy's house, there is an enormous green and blue wave, and it magically performs everything Paz describes. This leaves the more abstract themes to Paz's poetic text, like his increasingly dark descriptions of the boy staying up at night with the wave. "[W]e lay side by side, whispering secrets with smiles and smothered laughter. She rocked me to sleep in her waters and sang sweet sea songs into the shell of my ear…"

 "Other nights she was black and bitter. In dark despair she howled and sighed and twisted…"

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