"Who Moved My Cheese"; by Spencer Johnson, M.D.; Putnam, $19.95; 94 pages.
"Who Cut the Cheese?"; by Stilton Jarlsberg, M.D.; Crown, $12.95; 77 pages.
For 41 weeks, "Who Moved My Cheese," a how-to book designed to help the reader deal with change in work and life, has dominated the New York Times best-seller list. It purports to be "a simple parable" about change. The focus is on four characters who live in a "maze" and have to look for "cheese" to nourish them.
There are two mice named Sniff and Scurry, and two "little people" named Hem and Haw. Cheese is interpreted as a metaphor for what any person wants in life — a good job, a loving relationship, money, a possession, health or spiritual peace of mind. The characters are faced with unexpected change and are forced to deal with it.
The bulk of the book is the "cheese story" involving the four little characters, then there is a discussion about the story at the end, in which various people discuss the reactions they have had to change in their own lives. In short, this is a children's book designed for adults.
The book is small; the writing is big, and there are large chunks of cheese on several pages with messages emblazoned on them, such as "imagining myself enjoying new cheese even before I find it leads me to it."
This book has been a highly popular little manual for various companies and organizations, many of which have either assigned their employees to read it or have read it aloud together in company meetings. After all, it takes less than an hour to read.
But there really isn't very much cheese to get your teeth into. Although billed as "an amazing way to deal with change," the story is overly simple, and the basic idea is that if we are unable to cope with change, we will be left behind. Instead, we should sniff it out and be prepared for anyone who may "move the cheese."
This is the kind of thing that cries out for a parody, and the answer is "Who Cut the Cheese," just published by Crown. Whereas the first book advertises its author as the man "whose best-selling books help millions of people discover life's simple truths," the second says, "From the author whose best-selling books have raked in millions of dollars by spouting the perfectly obvious."
Indeed. The forward of the first book is by Kenneth Blanchard, the forward to the second by Kenneth Bleucheese.
"Who Cut the Cheese" is a merciless, often vulgar satire on the original book, and it may even attract some "Move the Cheese" devotees by its identical cover. (When they get home, they'll be surprised!) Its characters are Snitch and Scamper, two rats, and Hi and Ho, the "teeny people."
The maze they go through is symbolic of "the twisting, turning, mugger-filled blind alleys of your life." The rats do beautifully with change, while the teeny people "suffer the torments of the damned, because they fall back on old behaviors instead of buying self-help books."
Whereas Snitch and Snatch find their cheese by instinct, Hi and Ho use their brains, resulting in "complicated strategies, logical deduction, paradigm shifts and listening to Tony Robbins' motivational tapes, all in hopes of finding cheese." Unfortunately, the teeny people are not as successful in learning good values from the rats. Finally, they realize that "to win the rat race, you have to be a rat."
Just when Ho thinks the rats have outsmarted him, Hi appears astride a huge cat, which scares the rats away. He says he hired the cat using "large pieces of green paper loved by big people." The moral, then, is that money is a lot more important than cheese.
The satire would be funnier without its bathroom humor. And don't hold your breath waiting for it to beat out the original on the best-seller list.
E-MAIL: dennis@desnews.com