DD27 – The Wind in the Willows
I wonder if you recognise this extract?
“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the graveled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow …”
These are the opening lines of Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. The book was based on a series of bedtime stories, and much of the power of the language coming from its oral roots, a book to be read out loud as well as savoured in private reading, a book I’ve read and reread time and again. Who is this Mole? Mole is clearly the child listening to the story, and the substitute (the avatar?) giving the child a place in the story: Graham makes that clear a page further on as Mole wanders beside a ‘full-fed’ river. “The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories”. This is a child who would scrabble and scrooge out of bed, quickly throw on some clothes and go outside to play on one of those rare but special, sunny English days. The river? It was “this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver–glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble … a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.” It was the prospect and possibility of life, of adventures away from home. The promise of the river was “so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both forepaws and gasp, ‘O my! O my! O my!’” I could keep quoting extracts, as the book is packed with poetic prose. In Dulce Domum, still for me one of the most moving chapters in the book, Mole is on his way back to Rat’s home:“It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood. Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in.”
Evocative, entrancing and sometimes thrilling, I loved Mole and his friends as a child, and I still do. So much so, that there are large sections of the book that lurk in the back of my mind, ready and waiting for me to savour them again. I suspect it has that impact for two reasons. The first is because of when I first read it. I must have been quite young (it’s possible it was read to me the very first time), and so, like Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh, it’s a kind of ‘foundational text’. It some way it is tangled up with my childhood, and how I developed. Unlike some readers, for me the one character who is central to the story is Mole. He isn’t bold like Rat, he isn’t deep and thoughtful like Badger, and he certainly isn’t colourful and rather boastful like Toad. In fact, that’s his secret strength: introspective and caring, always willing to defer to others when the need arises, and with an enduring sentimental character. Dulce Domum: exactly.
The other reason that The Wind in the Willows never tires is because it is so well written. More so than in anything else he wrote, Kenneth Grahame managed to paint evocative pictures of life by the river and in the ‘wild wood’. Lazy afternoons and picnics, and then battles with the stoats and weasels; Mole back at his home with the carol singers; Toad in prison and Toad disguised as a washerwoman; and, of course, that foolish Toad sitting in the middle of the road, his caravan tipped over, watching a car speeding away as he quietly mutters ‘poop-poop’. As a horrible traditionalist, the only illustrations I consider acceptable are those by E H Shepard: anything else is embarrassing and mistaken!
But is this book still read today? Recently, Common Sense Media advised “Parents need to know that the beautifully written, richly inventive adventures chronicled in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows are best for children with patience. Kids may be more familiar with TV and film versions based on the original book.,” adding “A timeless classic for generations, [it] may be difficult for today’s kids in terms of its language and pacing. But parents can help in a read-aloud setting.” That made me sad. There are adventures, but it’s the imagery, the words that matter, not the adventure story, which is no more than the scaffold around which Grahame’s descriptions are placed.
I know the problems. The book evokes a distant, English middle class, an affluent past, one that’s comfortable and easy-going. Rat and Toad are Mole’s friends, exemplars of the chaps you would meet at your private school. Rat is one of those boys who excel in every kind of sport and physical tasks, and in doing so often making a Mole a little anxious and envious; Toad is a lazy, rich and spoilt fellow, loveable but prone to sudden fads and equally prone to foolish behaviour. Another character, Badger, is more like a schoolmaster, a principal perhaps, wise, old, a little slow but capable of dramatic action when required (just as my elderly history teacher could whirl round and instantly throw and hit the noisy boy with a wooden duster if he heard a sound behind him!).
In this world, do fathers and mothers exist? The storyteller might be dad, but mum is obviously busy elsewhere. Do women exist? Just two I recall: a bribeable washerwoman and a barge-woman, both helping Toad escape from jail! The language is challenging, with words seldom used today, and there’s cussing and violence, as some parents noted in feedback. Cussing? Mole’s ‘bother’ or ‘o blow’? At least he didn’t say fuck or shit. Violence? Yes, blows were struck retaking Toad Hall, but no-one died, just stoats and weasels with bruises and sore heads.
Kenneth Grahame was middle class to the core. He had worked in the Bank of England for nearly 30 years, supposedly retiring with ill health. His only child, a son, was born in 1900. Stories told to his son became the book, but, despite its success, he never wrote a sequel, perhaps because his son committed suicide just before his 20th birthday. For me, he sits alongside A A Milne as a gentle, amusing yet insightful author. I recognise saying that is a condemnation of me as much as it is praise of Kenneth Grahame. I can’t lose the prejudices of a middle-class English male, even if I can acknowledge them.
If Common Sense Media suggests it is a “timeless classic for generations”, perhaps we should check. Is Wind in the Willows still popular today? I couldn’t get book sales for recent years. Back in 1959, one text suggested that it was selling at a rate of 80,000 copies a year. I doubt it still sells at that level. Looking on Amazon’s page for the Shepard illustrated edition, I saw on the ‘Best Sellers Rank’ it was at #185,370 in Books, #3179 in Literature, #1812 in Children’s Classics, and #5946 in Classic Literature and Fiction. Not good for a timeless classic! At least the Disney version is only at #2,943,902 in Books. Quite right, too!
Setting aside this writer’s perspective, the current place of The Wind in the Willows in readership lists is illuminating. It is just one example of a trend that is impossible to ignore. Popular children’s books from the first half of the 20th Century are slowly fading from view. Actually, that is true of most novels, not just stories for children. Nor is it surprising. Retrieving books from the 19th Century and assessing their appeal is even clearer. By and large, the literature of the past slowly sinks from view. Some items get retrieved, often because they are the basis of a television series or a movie. In many cases, that often means there is another ‘edition’ produced, with text closer to what was seen on the screen.
Does that matter? New writers emerge, but many stories are merely variations on a small number of themes, so that those told today still speak to those same underlying and essential patterns: the child who is lost and found, the couple that find each other, the perilous adventure that ends in success, and other core stories about love, loss and achievement. Surely there will be another tale told about someone who makes a new friendship, has some adventures, and at the same time rediscovers their roots, their sense of home. It might be set in another galaxy, another time, but those core themes persist because they matter.
I hope that what does matter is the way the story is told. I am not certain that ‘long’ books are still read by many younger people, who may be more likely to enjoy an adventure as a visual as much as a verbal exercise. Of course, you know what I am going to say: no film can capture the complexity and depth of great writing. I’m going to give another extract from The Wind in the Willows, continuing on from that earlier quote when Mole caught the scent of his home. No apology, as you should be reading the book right now:
“Poor Mole stood alone in the road, his heart torn asunder, and a big sob gathering, gathering, somewhere low down inside him, to leap up to the surface presently, he knew, in passionate escape. But even under such a test as this his loyalty to his friend stood firm. Never for a moment did he dream of abandoning him. Meanwhile, the wafts from his old home pleaded, whispered, conjured, and finally claimed him imperiously. He dared not tarry longer within their magic circle. With a wrench that tore his very heart-strings he set his face down the road and followed submissively in the track of the Rat, while faint, thin little smells, still dogging his retreating nose, reproached him for his new friendship and his callous forgetfulness.
With an effort he caught up to the unsuspecting Rat, who began chattering cheerfully about what they would do when they got back, and how jolly a fire of logs in the parlour would be, and what a supper he meant to eat; never noticing his companion’s silence and distressful state of mind. At last, however, when they had gone some considerable way further, and were passing some tree stumps at the edge of a copse that bordered the road, he stopped and said kindly, “Look here, Mole, old chap, you seem dead tired. No talk left in you, and your feet dragging like lead. We’ll sit down here for a minute and rest. The snow has held off so far, and the best part of our journey is over.”
The Mole subsided forlornly on a tree stump and tried to control himself, for he felt it surely coming. The sob he had fought with so long refused to be beaten. Up and up, it forced its way to the air, and then another, and another, and others thick and fast; till poor Mole at last gave up the struggle, and cried freely and helplessly and openly,”
The Rat, astonished and dismayed at the violence of Mole’s paroxysm of grief, did not dare to speak for a while. At last he said, very quietly and sympathetically, “What is it, old fellow? Whatever can be the matter? Tell us your trouble, and let me see what I can do.”
Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked it as it came. “I know it’s a—shabby, dingy little place,” he sobbed forth at last brokenly: “not like—your cosy quarters—or Toad’s beautiful hall—or Badger’s great house—but it was my own little home—and I was fond of it—and I went away and forgot all about it—and then I smelt it suddenly—on the road, when I called and you wouldn’t listen, Rat—and everything came back to me with a rush—and I wanted it!—O dear, O dear!—and when you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty—and I had to[…]“I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the time—I thought my heart would break.—We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty—only one look—it was close by—but you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back! O dear, O dear!”
Recollection brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full charge of him, preventing further speech.
I know I include some books in my ‘Deeper Dives’ for more than just a desire to remind myself and anyone who reads my blog about some great literature. It is also because I am interested in what becomes lost. Critics have written about the decline or rejection of the ‘Western Tradition’, now seen as an embarrassment or worse by many academics. We seek a more diverse literature as our heritage, an excellent and wholly appropriate change.
When we turn to books for children, what does that mean for past classics? The Wind in the Willows is an excellent example, deeply embedded in a sexist, class-ridden era, a world that lingers on in the UK. I recall, all too clearly, visiting England several years ago with my wife, in part to catch up with my parents. We were having afternoon tea, and my wife was horrified: my mother didn’t talk to or acknowledge our waiter other than curtly ordering scones and a pot of Orange Pekoe tea. An Australian, my wife didn’t understand English class boundaries. My mother was comfortably middle-class, our waiter was way below her level. That was the way things were. I know all that. I know my many limitations, a creature of my culture and my time. And yet, is that all?
