The Wind in the Willows

I was so pleased to find this edition available, as it was this edition my mom gave me when I was little, and the illustration is nostalgic to me. I fear that copy mom gave, already well loved by the time it reached me, has gone the way of all favorite books, but then, the joy in gaining another copy! I can not wait to reacquaint myself with Mr Mole, Ratty, Mr Badger, and of course, the troublesome Mr Toad!

Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows will always be associated in my mind with A.A. Milne's The World of Pooh. My family owned both books, and I read them at about the same age, probably when I was still in single digits. Furthermore, ours had obviously been published together. The binding was identical, except that The World of Pooh was bound in tan cloth approximately the same color as Pooh himself, while The Wind in the Willows was bound in green cloth. What's more, both were illustrated by Ernest Shephard. (I will never be reconciled to the Disney versions of the Pooh characters.)

This association is strange, because in fact they are quite different books. The World of Pooh is, intentionally, a childish work. The Wind in the Willows is a children's book, but it is not childish. The characters are ostensibly small wild animals -- Mole, Rat, Badger, Otter, and the infamous Toad-- living a civilized life on the river, on the edge of the uncivilized Wild Wood. But in reality they think like grown-ups and have very grown-up concerns. They form a little self-policing society. I imagine it is modeled on Grahame's circle of friends, although I have not the tiniest shred of evidence to support that suspicion. They nevertheless feel very familiar to me, now at the age of 68. But even when I was a barely literate kid, they felt familiar to me, not because they were like my own friends, but because they were like the grown-ups who plagued us.

This doesn't sound very interesting or attractive, but in fact The Wind in the Willows was one of my favorite books at that time. Perhaps it served as a sort of key to the world of the incomprehensible grown-ups.

After watching the Disney adaptation of this classic, I decided to read it for myself, and I'm glad I did. Here are my reflections:

When you watch the Disney animated film, the title seems to be a misnomer. Not so for the book. The book repeatedly references how the wind has a voice of its own, particularly in the fantastic, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," chapter. The book seems to be a compilation of short stories, so you can skip some chapters entirely and not be left out of the plot. You can read the skipped chapters later if you so desire. They're wonderfully written, but to be honest, not much happens in them.

In the movie, Toad never steals a motorcar. In the book he darn sure does. He goes to prison justly, but for some reason after his friends help him recapture Toad Hall, he is no longer pursued by the police, even though he is no less guilty of his crime and is even moreso guilty because of his defiant escape. In this way, the book has a loose end that the movie by Disney corrects. Unfortunately Toad's character is slightly altered in the Disney movie because of the way it ties up this loose end.

The pace of the book seems to be very slow for a children's book and it's on quite a high reading level I would say. To me, this is surefire proof that literate kids 100 years ago were far more literate than literate kids of today. Harry Potter doesn't have near as high of a vocabulary level requirement as this book does. Most of the vocabulary is used to describe nature. Due to the slow pace of the book in which the narrator describes how beautiful the outdoors is, you really have to like nature to fully appreciate the author's intent. I don't know how many people in modern times really appreciate the outdoors. I sure don't. I hate mosquitos.

The use of metaphors in this book is extraordinarily beautiful. The moon is anthropomorphized and described as deliberately and intently struggling to shine through the clouds to help Rat and Mole in their search for Otter's baby. Also, making a trek to the South is compared to checking out of a hotel, and strong smelling sausage is described as singing of garlic. This Grahame guy was far more of an adult author than a children's author if you ask me.

I didn't really care for any of the characters other than Toad. I was saddened to see that he was left entirely out of many chapters. Toad was perfect comic relief. Sleeping way later than everyone else, not sharing his load of the work, claiming to do things he couldn't do, talking about how great he was, etc. The whole bit of Toad dressing as a washerwoman was great, and fortunately ate up a large chunk of the book.

The high points of the book are its great and masterful use of the English language including its beautiful metaphors, and the presence of the fun and amusing Toad. The only thing it has that may not be so appreciated is its slow pace. The animals sit down to a meal about 200 times during the book, and the preparations for the meals seem overwhelmingly detailed, making you question whether "adventure" is a proper word to use in describing what's going on.

This magnificent work seems targeted to upper class individuals who are bigger on manners and properness than action and suspense, although it does have a good amount of comedy. Great stuff, but not for Spongebob Squarepants fans.