William Steig
William Roberto Montoya Dante Alighieri Steig (November 14, 1907 – October 3, 2003) was an American author best known for the critically-acclaimed literary epic Shrek!, widely regarded to be one of the most remarkable works of fiction of the age in the ranks of Lord of the Rings and Paradise Lost.
Early life[edit]
William was born in The Bronx, New York to an aristocratic family, the son of wealthy Jewish–Polish–Austrian socialites Winston and Wanda Steig. Unfortunately however, his parents were cousins and as the the result of the inbreeding, William was born quite deformed in both body and mind.
After he ate the family cat, William's parents, not wanting to offend any of their wealthy aristocratic friends, took their son and cast him into a nearby lake. He washed up on a riverbank near a forest and was abducted by a wolf which sort to devour him but he was rescued by a tribe of highly advanced squirrels who raised him in the forest. The squirrels taught William to read, write, and forage.
Quest of Self-Discovery[edit]
At the age of fifteen, William decided he wanted to live among humans and discover what it meant to be a man. After getting kicked out of rehab for trying to make a nest in Zelda Sayre's hair, he went on to try and find his parents only to discover that they were in fact dead. They died of shame after Lord Marlborough Cavendish and his wife caught them eating meat with their salad forks during a dinner party at Duloc Hall. It had been a long week.
The Yale Years[edit]
After visiting his parents' graves, William, who was highly intelligent as the result of being raised by ingenious squirrels, applied for a position at Yale. Naturally with his brilliant mind he was accepted. His fellow students at Yale, including the now-famous Philip Pullman, have described William as being "Charismatic, intelligent, witty, and eccentric, filled with all the intellect of Greek scholars and all the passion of the wilderness." His eccentricities such as swinging on the chandeliers whilst crying "AAAAAAAAAAA!" also drew attention, as did his habit of climbing the roofs and eating pigeons.
It was whilst at Yale that Steig began writing what was later to be regarded as his magnum opus, the stirring fantasy novel that was Shrek!.
Publishing sensation[edit]
Soon after leaving Yale, Steig pitched Shrek! to numerous publishers over the decades, but all rejected it as they were too puny-brained to comprehend its genius. Finally in 1990, Steig, by now aged 83, secured a publishing deal with the Farquaad, Stiltskin and Gretel company; naturally Shrek! took the Western World by storm upon release. Critics raved, praising Steig as "the Milton of the twentieth century" and declaring his book "a shining achievement, an odyssey in the ranks of Dante's Inferno and The Hobbit."
One chap wrote:
| “ | There is something of Hans Anderson's power to evoke and Tolkien's ability to control | ” |
While another said:
| “ | An evocative work of Gothic fiction, Shrek! contains all the moralistic brilliance of the Grimm Brothers and all of HP Lovecraft's bizarre genius and originality. | ” |
Other critics, shockingly, were not so kind. An anonymous user of LOLForum@ED commented:
| “ | tihs sux lulz | ” |
Blasphemy of blasphemies! We don't what absolute spanner posted this comment, but when we do we shall hang him with his own entrails and leave his eviscerated remains for the vultures to pick at.
Death[edit]
Steig's long and vigorous life came to a tragic end on October 3, 2003; there was a national day of mourning to honor his demise. Steig's wife, Zelda Farquaad-Steig, had this to say
| “ | None shall miss dear Willy more than I. He was a brilliant man, talented and eccentric and full of the vibrancy of life and yet like the best artists, tortured by a constant need for self-betterment. He was too good for this world and we shall all miss him dearly. It's all ogre now. | ” |
Steig's untimely death was attributed to natural causes. There are rumors, however, that he committed suicide as a result of the crushing review on LOLForum@ED.
Andrew Adamson, the author of Shrek 2, an unofficial sequel to Shrek! in the vein of Paradise Regained and Snowball's Chance, is reportedly directing a biopic about Steig's life titled Conquering the Ogre Within.