Ultimately, the poor Cookie Monster has to sell his soul to the witch in order to get the lip-smacking cookies from the cookie tree.

Cookie Monster has often been portrayed as the asexual anti-utilitarian of Sesame Street and his role in this particular book, David Korr’s “Cookie Monster and The Cookie Tree,” is no exception.

With a nod to Gogol’s use of the literary fantastic, a nihilistic talking cookie tree refuses its tasty cookies to both the witch and Cookie Monster, who quickly becomes the disheveled addict who’s been cut off from his dealer.

He frantically returns to Sesame Street sweating profusely and with a bad case of the shakes, to ask his friends for help in getting the mouthwatering cookies out of the cookie tree.

But Big Bird, Ernie and even Oscar the Grouch have heard this song one too many times and refuse to help their junky friend.

Ultimately, the poor Cookie Monster has to sell his soul to the witch in order to get the lip-smacking cookies from the cookie tree.

In the climactic ending, perhaps comparable only to Tolstoy’s breathtaking “War and Peace,” the reader finds Cookie Monster devouring all of the delicious cookies from the cookie tree, most of the cookie tree’s leaves and branches and an innocent bystander rabbit.

The poor, poor rabbit, whose life was cut short by a cookie addict, will never scamper about the forest ever again.

This is a crazed monster whose only desire in life is to satisfy one excessive desire after the next — the ultimate heart-wrenching tale of greed, lust and deceit only intended for readers of the sophisticated circle.

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