"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" - John Lennon of the Beatles
As a Lennon afficianado, I knew he was extreamly influenced by the fairy tales and nursery rhymes he grew up listening to and reading. One of his recent collections was a compilation of his previously unreleased studio recordings entitled "Wonsaponatime." The title was a part of a new language Lennon created while he was writing his two books, "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works." In 1968, Lennon and Producer/Actor Victor Spinetti compiled his works and adapted them for "The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write" I found this extreamly insightful interview with Lennon and Spinetti that explains Lennon's influences for his unique style of writing.
Interviewer: There’s another thing about this boy [in the play] and that is - he won’t talk plain English. He invents his own language. Which is what you did when your books started coming out.
John: Well yeah, that was just a hangover from School, I used to make the lads laugh, with that scene, talking like that, and writing poetry - I used to write them and just give them to friends to laugh at, and that was the end of it. So when they all go down in a book, when it turns into a book or a play etc. etc. It’s just my style of humour.
Interviewer: Instead of saying, for example as I was going to, say “forsample”.
Victor: “Forsample”! yes, and “He was ASTOUNDAGHAST”!
John: Well, some of them ‘cus I was never any good at spelling, all me life, I never quite got the idea of spelling. English and writing, fine, but actually spelling the words. And also, I typed a lot of the book, and I can only do it very slowly with a finger, so the stories would be very short ‘cus I couldn’t be bothered going on. And also I’d spell it as you say it like Latin really, or just try and do it the simplest way to get it over with, ‘cus all I’m trying to do is tell a story, and what the words is spelt like is irrelevant really. But if they make you laugh because the word used to be spelt like that, that’s great. But the thing is - the story and the sound of the word.
Interviewer: A lot of people wrote about your book and said “Oh James Joyce, Edward Lear” and so on, what did you think when they said that?
John: Well, when they said James Joyce I hadn’t, I must of come across him at school but we hadn’t done him like I remember doing Shakespeare and I remember doing so and so. I remember doing Chaucer a bit, or somebody like him doing funny words, but I don’t remember Joyce. The first thing they say “Oh he’s read James Joyce”, so I hadn’t, so the first thing I do is buy Finnigan’s wake and read a chapter and it’s great and I dug it and I felt like - here’s an old friend, but I couldn’t make right through the book, and so I read a chapter of Finnigan’s wake and that was the end of it, so now I know what they’re talking about. But he just went, he just didn’t stop, yeah.
Interviewer: What actually though, had you read - that you know was important to you when you were young?
John: Only kids books, Alice in Wonderland. The poems are all from Jabberwocky [which] started me into that kick. And drawing I started trying to draw like Ronald Searle when I was about Eight. So there was Jabberwocky and Ronald Serle I was turning into by the time I was Thirteen. I was determined to be Lewis Carol with a hint of Ronald Searle.
Lennon uses this neologism to create his own unique portmanteau words; forsample (for example) wonsaponatime. Had he lived longer, I think Lennon would have been one of the greatest children's literature writers of all time, quickly moving into the realm of Hans Christian Andersen and Maurice Sendak. Here is the link to the interview if you're interested: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob17.html
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