“As she stood, considering what to do, she heard the distant sound of wind. Across the prairie it blew towards her, and in its path the grass whistled“As she stood, considering what to do, she heard the distant sound of wind. Across the prairie it blew towards her, and in its path the grass whistled and rustled, dry stalk on dry stalk, and bent, so that she could see the path of the wind as it approached her. Then it was all around her, and everything that had been so still before became alive with movement. The grass writhed and tore at its roots, the pale flowers beat against their stems, the thin thread of smoke was blown out like a candle flame, and disappeared into the dark sky. The wind whistled round the house and was gone, leaving Marianne deaf for a moment, and suddenly chilled.”
Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr is a haunting, claustrophobic and disturbing fantasy story for children of about nine years old and upwards. It was first published in 1958, and the first paperback was in 1964. I’m not sure when I first read it, although there was a radio dramatisation of it when I was a child, and on the cusp of my twenties, my boyfriend, who rated it highly, bought it for me and read it to me. This time, many decades later, we both listened to it as an audio book. It works well like this, although the original illustrations by Marjorie-Ann Watts, do add a lot. Her pencil drawings are in a naive style, because they are often supposedly drawn by the viewpoint character, Marianne.
Drawing, dreams and questioning reality is central to the story. There is a continuing nightmarish ambiguity, and over the years, Marianne Dreams has developed quite a cult following. It has a menacing undertone, which is unusual for books from this period for youngsters. Perhaps that is what keeps drawing people back to this book. At any rate it has been awarded the Booker Prize, the Edgar Award and many others; has never been out of print and is available in an e-book format. There was a six part TV adaptation of it in 1972, called “Escape into Night”, a 1988 film called “Paperhouse”, (an extremely free interpretation, which apparently the author hated), an opera, and a play. In 2014 a national newspaper published a list of the ten most shocking children’s books, or what might be called “dark” tales for children. Marianne Dreams was there at number nine, described as having “a claustrophobic, horror laden setting, following two children trapped in a house, watched by an unknowable enemy”.
Yet at times, this book is cringeworthily cosy, and all too clearly written as long ago as 1958. If you have ever winced at parts of the carefully vetted English children’s stories from the first half of the 20th century - those upper middle class children in their nuclear family, complete with maid and family pet - you will observe similarities here. Marianne is a privileged child with her own room and toys, looking forward to her pony lessons. She even has a private tutor when she is unable to go to school. It is no surprise that she sometimes behaves like a spoiled brat. Her mother, on the other hand, is patient and kind, just as a perfect upper middle class mother should be. The father seems to be nonexistent. Although he could be one of the millions who were killed in the Second World War, it seems unlikely, since Marianne’s mother is a lady of leisure, and money is not a problem.
Many women stayed at home in the 1950s to look after their families, but such social mores in Marianne Dreams are heavily influenced by much earlier fiction; for instance, having what amounts to a governess in a story from this time feels a little anachronistic. Occasionally if a child was ill at home for a long time, work from the school might be sent home, although often at Marianne’s age, there would be nothing. Also, fathers tended to take more part in family activities by now, and were not always absent or busy with their own affairs. Marianne’s father however, does not come to see her; not even once, although she is bedridden. In a way, the setting feels as if it is far earlier, from a pre-war era.
However, this is countered by the dream sequences which are endemic to the plot. They are very linear and realistic so what might be “real” becomes blurred. We have a duality, which feels more modern. And there is none of the cosy condescension of children’s writers from an earlier time. Catherine Storr knows the minds of children and unerringly writes what will speak to them and grip them.
We begin on Marianne’s tenth birthday. Reaching the age of ten - double figures - is a very special day, as any ten year old will tell you. But Marianne is not well, and sent to bed for what turns out to be at least six weeks. We are not told what illness she has. Perhaps it might be glandular fever; at any rate it is very debilitating, and the doctor is strict, saying that she should not get out of bed.
Marianne sleeps a lot, but when she is awake, she is restless and bored. Feeling frustrated, she gets irritated and is full of peevish complaints to her mother. Marianne’s mother tries everything she can think of to amuse her daughter, and fetches a lovely old mahogany keepsake box, which has been handed down from her own great grandmother.
Once alone and less grumpy, Marianne searches through the shiny trinkets and finds a pencil. Marianne cannot remember ever seeing it before. The pencil is stubby, and in need of sharpening, but something about it attracts her:
“It was one of those pencils that are simply asking to be written or drawn with.”
so she takes it out and begins to doodle. She is not very good at drawing, but what does every small child draw, at some time? Yes she draws a squarish house, with a door, four windows and a little curl of smoke rising from the chimney. The house is surrounded by a fence, enclosing just a few big flowers. Outside the fence’s perimeter, she draws some long grass and blobby misshapen rocks. So far, so good.
But that night, when Marianne goes to sleep, she has an extraordinary, lucid dream:
“She didn’t just go to sleep – she dropped thousands of feet into sleep, with the rapidity and soundless perfection of a gannet’s dive.”
(view spoiler)[When Marianne falls asleep in real life, she is “awake” in the dream, finding herself inside her own picture. It is a very eerie sequence. The house is there, and even the garden is there, but she cannot get into the house. Her own naive drawing is now real, but Marianne’s poor drawing skills means there is no door handle to get in, although the smoke rising from the chimney suggests there should be somebody at home. Now frightened, she seems to hear a voice saying: “Put someone there.”
When Marianne wakes up, she thinks there should be someone in the house, so she draws a boy at one of the upper windows. As we follow the story, we learn that the boy’s name is Mark, and he exists both in Marianne’s dream world and in the real world. He can’t get downstairs in Marianne’s dream, because she has not drawn any stairs. Also he has one leg thinner than the other and can barely walk, because she hasn’t drawn him very well. In the real world, Mark has polio, and his recovery still lies in the balance. (hide spoiler)]
Marianne’s days consist of lying in bed, and having three occasional visitors: her mother, the doctor and a private tutor. Miss Chesterfield teaches several invalid children, so that they do not fall too far behind at school. (view spoiler)[Mark is another of her pupils.
As Marianne’s dreams become more frequent, she starts to draw useful things which are needed in the dream house. She and Mark get to know each other better, but their relationship is often prickly. Mark himself does not seem to understand why he is there, and seems trapped in Marianne’s dream but unable to do anything about it. Both of them bring their bad tempers and their unhappiness with them to the house, and they often argue. The tension is slowly building between them, and one day there is a catastrophic split.
Marianne is jealous, and wants Miss Chesterfield to like her best. So she has spent all her pocket money on a few expensive roses to give Miss Chesterfield on her birthday. She waits impatiently for her teacher's visit. However, she is told that Miss Chesterfield won’t be visiting her that afternoon. Later she discovers that Mark given Miss Chesterfield an enormous bouquet of the same flowers. Marianne completely loses her temper, and in a fit of pique, she destroys her pitifully few roses.
Then she returns to her drawing and scribbles strong dark lines across the windows of the house. For good measure, she puts more of the tall stones outside the fence, which remind her of gaolers:
“They should watch Mark, she thought with angry satisfaction, keeping him prisoner under constant surveillance. Marianne drew in more stones, a ring of them round outside the fence. To each she gave a single eye …
“If he tried to get out of the house now, they would see. They watch him all the time, everything he does. They will never let him out.”(hide spoiler)]
This part of the story is terrifying to read. There is a dark presence, and we are full of dread at what might happen; our imaginations running wild with ominous thoughts. The connection between the real and dream world is growing dangerously close, and spills over into Marianne’s waking hours. She is consumed with guilt, (view spoiler)[and obsessed with the real Mark, yet in their waking lives, they had never met, or even communicated. Everything that Marianne knows about Mark, she has learned at second-hand, through the anecdotes of Miss Chesterfield.
After scribbling on the picture in her temper tantrum, Marianne finds that the dream Mark is much weaker. He is puzzled by some bars criss-crossing the window, which just appeared, and now make the room dark. He also feels that the stones outside have begun to watch him. Now in real life, to her great horror, Marianne learns that Mark has deteriorated and is in a hospital in an iron lung (an early form of ventilator machine, to help him breathe). From now on, her eerie dreams steadily become more and more nightmarish, and full of mental demons.
The story plays out very inventively, cranking up the tension until Marianne is able to confront the staring, threatening stones, which watch them all the time. She draws food, books and other distractions such as a bike: whatever is needed to make Mark stronger, and in better spirits. Then Marianne draws a transistor radio, and together they listen to the crackle, realising that the stones are transmitting their malevolent, monosyllabic whispers. Listening, Marianne and Mark pick up the malevolent Stone Watchers' fragmented threats to harm them, picking them up on the radio. They discover that the stones are afraid of the light, from the circling lighthouse lamp, and are able to plan their escape.
They make a desperate bike-ride, heading towards the lighthouse and freedom, during the short time when the hostile watchers are temporarily blinded by the beacon of light, which Marianne has added to the pictures. We are left on a gentle cliff-hanger of an ending, reading a note from Mark who has escaped. Yet Marianne seems content. For now at least, she has reached a point in childhood when the whole wide world seems to be benevolent. She waits for what will happen next in her life: perhaps for what she was to become:
“Everything seemed to be resting; content; waiting. Mark would come; he would take her to the sea.”
Of course dream endings are never quite clear, but each of them has escaped the house and the terrible staring stones, and in real life Mark is off the machine, back home and gaining strength. Significantly perhaps, we end the story in the dream world; not in reality.
It is noticeable that neither Marianne, nor the reader, ever meets the real life Mark. Is he then a construct? Is he a figment of her imaginative brain, working on Miss Chesterfield’s anecdotes in her dream state? (hide spoiler)]
Marianne Dreams has perhaps endured because it is a very insightful book, which deals with the complicated psyche of a sick child, through telling a gripping story. The story has an eerie mesmeric quality, which perfectly reflects the anguish we feel when trying to solve problems we only partially understand. It is a feeling common to all children, as they grow into adults. As such this is a powerful story about learning how to cope with terrible adversity. We see it symbolically through (view spoiler)[ the malevolent watching stones, (hide spoiler)] which represent an unknowable threat, and we experience the powerlessness we feel when trapped within a recurring dream. Marianne Dreams is in fantasy territory, but the accuracy about feelings and resulting behaviour of being ill and stuck in bed are very realistic. The book is based on firm emotional ground, and is important precisely because it raises the issues for children of facing their fears.
The oppressive atmosphere of danger and threat is pervasive, and the tension builds remorselessly. Marianne (view spoiler)[and Mark both (hide spoiler)] feel as trapped in their real life as in their dream life. Illness has caused both a loss of self confidence, a feeling of frustration and lack of power. It feels as though life will never be normal again. Any person feels depressed and angry at the world in this situation, and behaves in a peevish way. What Marianne must do, though, is to learn how to face such negative feelings: to learn how to use them in a positive way. A dream world gives an opportunity to do this (view spoiler)[ by gradually recognise the common enemy in the sentient but hostile stones - which represent Marianne and Mark’s illnesses - and begin to work together to devise a strategy for escape. (hide spoiler)] Just as recovery happens in the dream world, so can progress in recuperating be made in the real world.
For a children’s book, this is extremely scary. Without mention of a vampire, werewolf or zombie, this story will frighten any child with a vivid imagination (so perhaps should be avoided by youngsters who are particularly sensitive or nervous, especially of the dark). It is remarkably effective even for older readers and adults, including myself. Marianne Dreams is a story filled with questions, whose menace lingers in the mind; the unseen dangers lurking somewhere in the corners of our sight. Some parts are unforgettably chilling, sending a shiver down the spine of anyone who has read this book:
It plays on our primal fears of being trapped, of being pursued, of being helpless with the terrifying (view spoiler)[ boulders, with their one, blinking eye and their low, droning, menacingly repeated hum (hide spoiler)]:
“Get them, get them!”
There is sadly, a downbeat ending in real life. This was to be Catherine Storr’s one classic work. Born Catherine Cole in 1913, the daughter of a London barrister, she had wanted to be a writer from about Marianne’s age. But she had a series of rejections from publishers, and decided at 27 to train as a doctor. Eventually she became a psychiatrist, secretly hoping that studying medicine and psychoanalysis would ensure the emotional depth and realism in her writing, which book publishers might be looking for:
“I started writing when I was 10 years old, and it became an addiction. I think in story form … I don’t write with a child readership in mind. I write for the childish side of myself, and I find it often acts as psychotherapy.”
Ironically, her first children’s book was accepted for publication just when she began medical school. (It was not a success, and reportedly disappeared without trace.) She married the psychiatrist Anthony Storr and had three children with him before they divorced in 1970. She never lost her wish to write, and among her other books are a sequel to Marianne Dreams, and a chirpy little series about “Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf”, in which a kind and resourceful little girl regularly outwits a foolish and pathetic wolf who wants to catch and eat her.
Catherine Storr wrote about writing for children:
“We should show them that evil is something they already know about or half know. It is not something right outside themselves and this immediately puts it, not only into their comprehension but it also gives them a degree of power.”
She knew how important it is for children to read scary stories. Other children’s authors too, such as Alan Garner, or Susan Cooper, Maurice Sendak or more recently Patrick Ness, have all shown that they understand this. Children dealing with - and fighting - evil are at the heart of their works. In particular, there are strong similarities between Marianne Dreams and Patrick Ness’s “A Monster Calls”. His story begins with a disembodied voice drifting on the wind through a bedroom window, and into a troubled young boy’s dreams. The two children may have had different life challenges to deal with, but each lives in the same type of dream world, heavily laden with fear, dread and menace.
Marianne is, of course, Catherine Storr herself.
Sadly, Catherine Storr believed her story-telling style had gone irrevocably out of fashion. She had been depressed for some time, because she could not get any of her recent works published. She told friends it was “not clinical”.
But in January 2001, at the age of 87, Catherine Storr, the author who had given the world this wonderful, extraordinary, terrifying book, killed herself.
She had kept on writing stories until the end of her life....more
Woof! is a children's novel by Allen Ahlberg from 1986. As with all his books, the emphasis is on humour, a chatty confidential tone, and telling a goWoof! is a children's novel by Allen Ahlberg from 1986. As with all his books, the emphasis is on humour, a chatty confidential tone, and telling a good story from a child's point of view.
"There was once a boy who turned into a dog. The boy's name was Eric Banks; he was ten years old. The dog he turned into was a Norfolk terrier."
The story which follows is cheerfully and simply told, with situations familiar to almost every child. Friends, parents, school life - Ahlberg immerses himself in a child's world, and seems to get inside a child's skin, so that the experiences in his stories, even fantastical ones such as this, are believable and endearing to child and adult alike.
We follow Eric and his best friend Roy, his little sister Emily and his parents, through a few extraordinary weeks as he shifts between being Eric the child and Eric the dog. The typical fears of a child are there; vague fears of his parents and teachers, and of the school bully. Only his slightly dim friend Roy is "in the know" about the amazing secret, and the ensuing adventures are very funny. Everything is told with a child's logic, a child's sense of what is fair.
The two get into adventures and scrapes in all the places a child might go, such as the classroom, the swimming baths, the library, and the chip shop. Plus there are entertaining events such as the school sports day, of which the head teacher is very proud. Of course we are rooting for Eric the dog throughout. We know that he is bound to save the day, when there is a potentially dangerous situation, and we are even more satisfied and pleased when a kind of explanation of the shape-shifting is presented at the end.
The book consists of 21 chapters, and although more text-heavy than many of his books, it is a straightforward entertaining read. It would be suitable for any youngish children, who can cope with short sentences. Alternatively it is a good story to read aloud, with obvious points at which to break for dramatic effect. There are humorous line drawings by Fritz Wegner inserted into the text, which add to the pleasure of reading for both adults and children.
Allen Ahlberg is a prolific and deservedly popular British children's writer. From his origins adopted into what he calls "a very poor working-class family" in the English Black Country, he went on to try many jobs, eventually training to become a primary school teacher. He continued in this profession for over a decade, now maintaining that it is "much harder" than being a writer. Evidently it has stood him in good stead in becoming familiar with the attitudes and internal workings of the mind of a child.
He has co-authored many children's picture books and series with his wife, Janet, who also illustrated them. Examples are "Each Peach Pear Plum", which won the prestigious "Kate Greenaway" medal from the Library Association, "The Jolly Postman", which Ahlberg says, "made innovative use of envelopes to include letters, cards, games and a tiny book." "Peepo!" and "Burglar Bill". These books regularly appeared at the top of the list of most popular picture books for about twenty years. Allen Ahlberg has also written many stories and books of poetry for children under his own name, for many years, and has continued to do so since Janet Ahlberg died. Examples of these are "Mr Cosmo the Conjuror", "Please Mrs. Butler", and "The Pencil". In July 2014, Allan Ahlberg declined a "Lifetime Achievement Award" with a substantial money prize attached. The given reason was because of ethical grounds related to the award's principal sponsor.
For further examples of this author's hugely entertaining children's books, see my bookshelves....more
This edition of Peter Pan contains the text of J.M. Barrie’s 1911 novel, “Peter and Wendy”, which he wrote from his earlier play of 1904. The characteThis edition of Peter Pan contains the text of J.M. Barrie’s 1911 novel, “Peter and Wendy”, which he wrote from his earlier play of 1904. The character of Peter Pan, the little boy who wouldn’t grow up, had already made an appearance in an earlier work by J.M. Barrie, “The Little White Bird” (1902). There continue to be many retellings of this magical story, and Peter is himself a timeless figure; one of the best-loved characters in children’s literature. There is maybe a little of Peter in everybody. We can all empathise with that concept; it speaks to our inner psyche.
But what are we to make of the original? For any readers critical of modern children’s fiction for being too violent, I would direct them to read this piece (plus some Lewis Carroll, and “Strewelpeter…”) to see what was considered appropriate for Victorian children. It is by turns overblown, full of Victorian sentiment and whimsy, but there is also a dark side with very grim overtones. There is betrayal, selfishness, cruelty, torture and bloodthirstiness galore. For,
“children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.”
William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” owes a lot to this book. And it is not only the children and the “baddies” who are depicted as evil and malicious. Their parents seem full of hypocrisy too.
For instance, a few pages into the story, the Darlings are discussing whether or not they can afford to keep their newborn baby, Wendy. Then a little later there is a “competition” between father and son about who will take his medicine more bravely. The father pours his medicine into the dog’s bowl and tricks her into drinking it. He treats this as a great joke although the rest of the family do not think so. What is the message here? Parents betray you? Parents do not feel remorse? Or is it simply very black humour? The dog “Nana”, incidentally, is just that. She is quite literally, a nursemaid to the children. Whimsy? Humour? A little of both probably, although I do remember finding this confusing myself, as a child.
A further observation on how traitorous adults can be comes later in the story, when Hook bites Peter as he is helping him up,
“its unfairness was what dazed Peter … He could only stare horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly … After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be the same boy.”
The story of Peter Pan is the stuff of dreams. Or is it? Isn't it more the stuff of nightmares? Look at the pirates. There is the cadaverous Captain Hook with his Charles II costume and of course the murderous hook instead of a hand. He is tormented by the thought of the crocodile which pursues him - and who has opportunely swallowed an alarm clock to increase Hook’s dread. And in addition Hook is oddly scared of the sight of his own blood. Hook is a tormented character,
“ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.”
It becomes clear that he was an ex-Etonian, with a sorry past.
“Hook was not his real name,” states Barrie.
Then there is his second-in-command Smee, who, “had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee.” The author lurches between sardonic humour such as this, and being curiously dispassionate about the story, “Let us now kill a pirate to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do”.
The Lost Boys, although given individual names, again seem to be curiously abstract and interchangeable. Depicted as budding pirates themselves, they, “vary in numbers… they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.”
Thins them out?!
He also hunts down Captain Hook, while he, “swore a terrible oath: “Hook or me this time." He crawled forward like a snake with, "one finger on his lip and his dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy."
Yes, Peter could be said to be the most merciless character of them all. But Barrie depicts him as truly amoral, perpetually in that very early stage of childhood where “the self” is the centre of the universe.
“The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thing.”
The character of Peter is consistent with this throughout. He frequently forgets things - and people - and views his own actions as responsible for anything which pleases him. Thus his “crowing”. Barrie has given us a perfect description of a child's focus prior to learning about others, or such concepts as responsibility, cause and effect. It is merely the reader’s interpretation to regard him as a “mischievous boy”. The character himself is a long way off such self-knowledge.
The idea of “Neverland” is an intriguing one. Again, it speaks to something deep inside us all. The three children found that they recognised the island from their dreams. It had aspects of all they desired, and also much of what they feared. It was different for each, and yet the same. It was make-believe, but also with real threats. This dual perception of reality is a constant theme throughout the novel, and very hard to grasp. “It doesn't matter, it's only make-believe”, we think. And then, “Oh no, but it's not!” At one point Peter,
“regretted that he had given the birds of the island such strange names and that they are very wild and difficult of approach.”
The Lost Boys are variously acting as redskins or pirates, switching at will. Barrie's skill at depicting how involved they become in their characters adds to the blurring of unrealities.
There is no doubt that Barrie’s imaginative and inventive powers are superb. “Tinkerbell”, the selfish fairy, is another whose persona has seeped into the public’s consciousness.
“Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good.”
Interestingly, the use of “fairy dust” to enable the children to fly is a later addition. After the stage play, parents had complained to Barrie that their children were hurting themselves by jumping out of their beds and “trying to fly”. This seems an extraordinary detail for Barrie to believe necessitated changing in such a bloodthirsty tale!
Actually, Barrie has slotted into a common traditional folk view of the little people as being essentially bad. He refers to the fairies coming home “unsteady… from an orgy” the night before, looking for malevolent tricks to play. But Tinkerbell is loyal to Peter throughout, and of course when all the audience (or readers) are urged to clap their hands, or else she will die, this is pure magic. But Peter stays true to character. By the end of the story he does not even remember her.
“There are such a lot of them,” he said, “I expect she is no more.”
Again, what does this teach a young reader about loyalty or friendship? This is a ruthless tale, not a moral one.
If we look for a “good” character, we tend to trip over Wendy, who seems to be an archetype for Barrie’s idea of females. She delights in being a “mother" to the lost boys, forgets her true home much as her brothers do, spends all her time cooking, cleaning and darning, and professes to feel sorry for spinsters. The reader doesn't get the impression that this is ironic; more likely, wish-fulfilment on behalf of the author. Even during the bloodbath at the end, she,
“praised them all equally and shuddered delightfully when Michael [her youngest brother] showed her the place where he had killed one...”
A psychologist would have a field day with this book. Indeed, there is a “Peter Pan” syndrome, to describe individuals who are reluctant to take on “adult” cares and responsibilities, preferring to pursue their own, often creative, interests. And there is plenty of substance to support the view that Barrie was a troubled individual, and that this fed into his writing. His elder brother David, died in a tragic skating accident at the age of fourteen. This deeply affected their mother. The dual parallels with the boy who couldn't grow up, and would therefore remain a boy for ever, and the idealised mother, are quite blatant. Then when James Barrie grew up, he apparently had a troubled marriage, with difficulties making love, which alienated his wife.
He became close friends with the Llewelyn Davies family, having met two of the boys in Kensington Gardens, and began to tell them stories about his invented character Peter Pan. Barrie coined the name using the first name of one of the five, and “Pan” from the mischievous god of the woodlands. Again, this story is overlaid with sadness. In 1907 the father Arthur died of cancer of the jaw, and three years later the mother Sylvia followed, apparently from lung cancer. Barrie became their guardian in 1910, and from then on even closer to the boys.
But the real life tragedies continued. The eldest, George, was killed like much of his generation on Flanders Field in 1915. The character of Peter Pan was apparently primarily based on him. Michael, who was deeply afraid of the water, drowned in 1921 with a classmate at Oxford. And in 1960 Peter, the second son, threw himself in front of a subway train in London.
Much has been made of Barrie’s interest in these children, just as has been with Lewis Carroll’s interest in children, especially in our over-sensitive and suspicious climate. This is a bit of a mystery. Surely an interest in children is natural and common to all humans, to a greater or lesser degree, whether male or female. Would it seem so “shocking” if these two writers had been female?
Surely the point is that writers write from their own experience. Even if what they write is ostensibly pure fantasy, there will be facets of their own experience underlying it. Like most writers he took his inspiration from real life and reworked the people he knew and loved to populate his books and plays. Many experiences came together to make James Barrie’s creation of an immortal little boy. In some ways he was writing about what he wished might happen. But because of that creation, current history will unfortunately peer into his personal life. He achieved immortality himself, but at a price.
So far this has been an analysis of the text of the original novel, which is perhaps rarely read now. Certainly the perception of the story of Peter Pan is a much “softer” version, deduced from a composite number of sources. This edition of the text though, dates from 1987, and was reissued in 2003 as a Centennial Edition (presumably in readiness for 2004, 100 years after the first edition.) It has decorative illustrations by Michael Hague which complement the text perfectly. They are watercolours with a wealth of detail, using subtle colours and complicated patterns which appeal far more to an adult than a child. They are moody and sensitive without being sentimental. And there are a lot of them - between two and four for each of the seventeen chapters. It is a beautiful book.
Reading the original Peter Pan as an adult has been a startling experience. It is not at all what a reader might expect, and although Barrie wrote it as a children’s story, this book as it stands would not appeal to a modern-day child. We have all lost the capacity for appreciating whimsy in the same way. A child might well enjoy the bloodthirsty nature of the book, and the absoluteness of punishment and judgment. There are few shades of grey in this book. Nobody is urged to “get along” with anybody else. And the adults are seriously flawed. But the cosiness of the language makes it an unlikely choice.
It does however deserve four stars from an adult’s point of view. From its first instantly recognisable line,
“All children, except one, grow up”
through to Peter Pan’s claim,
“To die will be an awfully big adventure,”
it is an incomparable classic.
“Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are…and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked”
observes James Barrie. The characters in this book, especially Peter Pan, act out that theory to perfection. The book ends with the phrase,
“and so it will go on, as long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.”
For all its flaws it is a unique and truly imaginative book, with an unforgettable antihero, and one which has spawned many imitations....more
I remember when Watership Down was first published in 1972. It was a novel by an unknown English author, Richard Adams. All of a sudden the book WaterI remember when Watership Down was first published in 1972. It was a novel by an unknown English author, Richard Adams. All of a sudden the book Watership Down was absolutely everywhere and people were reading it on buses, trains, park benches — all over the place. It captured everybody's imagination. Six years later the animated film came out, and it all happened all over again! If, glancing at the cover, you asked any of those readers "Is this a book about rabbits?" the answer would be a hesitant yes. Yet if you then asked, "So is it a children's book?" the answer would be a firm "No!" It includes explicit details about warrens being gassed, rabbits snagged in barbed wire, about torture under a totalitarian regime, and descriptions of savage and bloody conflict.
From the first paragraph onwards, the style of writing indicates its focus group. The prose is too rich and complex for children; the concerns those of adults. There is breathtaking lyrical description in Watership Down. Richard Adams shows a detailed knowledge of the natural world in which the rabbits live, specifically the English countryside. "Watership Down" is an actual hill in Hampshire, near the village of Kingsclere, just a few miles away from the area in Berkshire where Richard Adams grew up. The locations are geographically accurate, even to the little maps which are included. Growing up in a rural area in the 1920's, Richard Adams had the sort of country childhood which no longer exists. Much of his time was spent alone, and this fired his imagination and his passion for make-believe, based on his direct experience of nature.
Facts about little-known wild plants and flowers and their growing seasons, the creatures of the countryside, their habits, behaviour and terrain, are all interwoven in the narrative so that the reader absorbs this alongside the story, and becomes immersed in the English landscape. It is a rich and satisfying experience; the language is to be savoured. As well as writing other fantasy novels, Richard Adams went on to write the factual book "Nature Through the Seasons" three years later, and much of that information is incorporated here. He credits another writer, R.M. Lockley (one of my favourite naturalist authors) for teaching him about the characteristic behaviour of rabbits through his book "The Private Life of the Rabbit".
Of course it is not merely the depth and wealth of description which sets this aside as an adult book. The broad story-line of Watership Down concerns a small, ever-changing group of rabbits, led by Hazel and his little brother Fiver, in an attempt to escape their warren. Rabbits are prey animals with “a thousand enemies”. It is a serious business to leave a safe home and risk living in a vast world of unknown predators. There is no evident threat; Sandleford Warren is secure, stable and happy. Why should they leave? Thus we have conflict from the very start. We also have an other-worldly dimension, since Fiver has a strange premonition of doom coming to their warren. And Hazel, although the dominant one of the two, believes and respects Fiver for his inexplicable, almost psychic, abilities, since they are often right. Fiver is runtish, often very twitchy and full of foreboding. He cannot explain his feelings, and dark dread of a catastrophic event for the warren, even to himself. But his prophetic visions always mysteriously carry conviction. And his main vision, of a rabbit paradise, is a positive one which urges the rabbits to keep steadfast.
“I know what we ought to be looking for — a high lonely place with dry soil, where rabbits can see and hear all around and men hardly ever come. Wouldn't that be worth a journey?”
Fiver's vague premonitions come at key points during the book, and are essential to the plot, moving it along, often creating tension and arguments between the rabbits as they do so.
Hazel is less intelligent and ingenious than some rabbits, yet he is a born leader. Bigwig, the freedom-fighter, is stronger and bigger than Hazel, but Hazel makes a much better leader because he can think for the whole group, and is able to see immediately how to work cooperatively and use each member of the group's special skills, in order to best benefit them all. For instance it is higher-achieving rabbits such as Blackberry, (view spoiler)[who can work out how to free rabbits living in a hutch, or how to use a boat (hide spoiler)]. We see that clever rabbits value ingenuity over intellectualism (even though none of them can actually count to five).
It is unnatural for rabbits to travel overland together away from their safe warren. Throughout the book the author refers to any unnatural behaviour for rabbits, through the characters' own self-knowledge. He keeps very close to their instinct-driven psychology, instead of heavily anthropomorphising. This is one of the great strengths of the book; its total believability in the scenario — the world — of the book. We humans too have a view of what is "natural" behaviour, and sometimes our innate natures are different from the norm, or we choose to behave differently. This depth of exploration into the characters' individual strengths and determination, and how they bond through a series of adventures, makes for an absorbing read.
Also inserted into the story are a series of little stories about a rabbit folk-hero, "El-Ahrairah". Here you may recognise heroes from many ancient cultures, stories told down the millennia; and there's even a smattering of "Brer Rabbit"'s cunning and ingenuity in there too. Humans consider trickery to be deceitful and wrong, but for rabbits it is a matter of survival. (view spoiler)[Bigwig cleverly tricks the Owsla in Efrafa into believing that he is acting alone and then he escapes with the does. Hazel tricks a cat into attacking Pipkin and himself, so that they can escape. (hide spoiler)] The stories remind all rabbits that trickery means using their wits to escape a situation which may otherwise be fatal. They always have to use their ingenuity and cunning, because using force is against their nature (except in rare cases such as Bigwig and General Woundwort). Bigwig, solid and true, is a model of stamina and determination, using his brawn rather than brain, but he has unswerving loyalty, is truly courageous and ready to fight to the death for his friends.(view spoiler)[ The part where he is trapped in a snare set by humans is a harrowing, unforgettable scene (hide spoiler)].
The stories are all told by Dandelion, a rabbit with a particular talent for story-telling — just as there would be a chief story-teller and recorder of important events in any tribal group. The closest human religion to the rabbits' own is pantheism. They revere Nature, and celebrate Life. Man, with his "little white sticks" (cigarettes) and "hrududu" (motors) is the enemy. Yet they also believe in an afterlife. And many stories revolve around "Frith", the rabbits' God (our sun) and the "Black Rabbit of Inlé", who is an evil tempter, a demonic character. We recognise Noah's Ark in one tale, but mostly the stories seem to be inventions which carry a flavour of ancient myth, and religion. The rabbits' behaviour too is influenced by their beliefs, such as when they go "tharn" (frozen by shock) at a particularly frightening story. Some stories can be interpreted as allegory, some as a take on religion.
One of the novel's boldest themes is about making peace with death. (view spoiler)[At the end of the novel, Hazel dies, and just after he has left his body, he looks back at his warren, seeing his home, the community he established, with many rabbits running and playing and enjoying themselves (hide spoiler)]. This was his vision, and is his paradise; a place of protection, food, family and pleasure.
The rabbits see several different types of warren on their journey. A political interpretation of the first warren they come to would be socialist, since all the rabbits there are equal and no one has anything more than anyone else. "Cowslip" speaks for them, but is not their leader since he does not offer them protection from the dangers they face. These rabbits have remarkably human-like qualities. Art is held uppermost, and their highly-developed poetry and sculpture is incomprehensible to Hazel's group. They also seem to have lost their faith in the rabbit religion of Frith, and the trickster-hero El-Ahrairah, meeting Dandelion's stories such as "The Story of the King's Lettuce" with amused tolerance. (We readers however, are entranced by the stories' inclusion in the novel.)
The rabbits there are large, and live in relative luxury, but Hazel's group are unsettled by the ominous, cultish atmosphere. There has to be a reason why the word "where" is never used, and why death is a taboo subject. (view spoiler)[ In fact the rabbits of this unnamed warren live close to humans, who feed them with "flayrah"(delicacies) but set snares all around the warren. The rabbits in the colony ignore the fact that they will die horribly and prematurely, so that they can eat lettuce now. (hide spoiler)]
Despite all the food, this warren feels very unhealthy and unnatural to Hazel and his group. They want to be free to roam and eat outside, and do the things that rabbits have always done, living their own lives naturally. The rabbits cannot understand how others can compromise this urge, or want to live any other way. They accept that there will always be predators, but believe that no protection from a predator is worth the loss of the chance to live a normal rabbit life. This theme continues throughout the book.(view spoiler)[The farm rabbits in a hutch have no freedom. Efrafa has to be invisible to survive, and the restrictions Woundwort has to impose to achieve this, destroy any pleasure in life for most of the rabbits there. Fiver has the insight to see that this warren with snares will be a deathtrap, because he is a natural and a visionary, never losing sight of who he is or what he wants. (hide spoiler)]
This unnamed warren may seem progressive, but it is stultified, with rabbits who have lost their life-force just as much as if they were subject to a dictator. Their world view has become fatalistic, so their Art is mere appearance. The author clearly has a firm belief that true Art comes from deeper roots, older cultures, classical and traditional values and poetic tradition.
In Watership Down the rabbits have a religion of their own, a culture and customs of their own, and even a language of their own. There are many humorous moments in the book when the rabbit language "Lapine" is not undertood by the other creatures, and a common language of the hedgerow is spoken. There is a mouse who seems to speak with an East European accent, and a seagull, "Kehaar" — a lovely onomatopoeic name — who also speaks in a heavily accented dialect or patois.
All these, plus the main events in the story, of course, could be adapted into a children's version of Watership Down just as classics have been retold for children for centuries. Another aspect might need considering. I remember being rather startled by a no-nonsense, straitlaced Aunt pronouncing that "if a book doesn't have sex in it, then it's a children's book". Actually this novel does... (view spoiler)[Once the rabbits have at last reached a place of safety, they realise they have no mates, and they have to embark on another dangerous journey (hide spoiler)]. Naturally these rabbit are concerned with procreation - they are rabbits after all!
In common with many great myths and traditional stories, Watership Down describes a journey to attain a safe place which can be made into a home. It is a quest in search of that basic urge common to all living creatures. Concerns of friendship, family, comradeship, an esprit de corps, loyalty, honour, respect are all uppermost, underpinned by courage, bravery and endurance. But these are still rabbits with essentially rabbitish concerns.
Forget Alison Uttley's modest, gentle "Little Grey Rabbit" character, or Dorothy Richard's "Tasseltip". Forget Margery Williams's "Velveteen Rabbit". Very definitely forget Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" and the "Flopsy Bunnies". These are decidedly not "little people in furry coats". There are no "bunnies" in sight here. Forget even Joel Chandler Harris's "Brer Rabbit" if you can, although aspects of El-Aharairah may well remind you of him. We recognise qualities we admire in humans, the wisdom and intermittent ability to be far-seeing, even though planning is beyond most rabbits' purview. But we also witness cunning and manipulative behaviour; behaviour which is brutish and savage.
Just as human can use their intelligence for good or evil, so can rabbits. Yet even the most evil character in the book, General Woundwort, (view spoiler)[the founder of a rigid fascist regime, (hide spoiler)] is not a cardboard cut-out or sterotype. He is a fully rounded character with whom we can empathise. We learn all about his past and what made him the rabbit he was. A charismatic personality, he developed his tough, ruthless character through strength and determination. We can understand all his actions, and see that, just as with many hated figures in history, although what transpires from his philosophy is evil, the personality behind it is not necessarily cruel or vindictive for the sake of it. He is merely an individual single-mindedly following his ethos, and performing whatever actions he deems necessary to achieve it.
(view spoiler)[And there is a neat opening left for his return. Although “General Woundwort was never seen again,” he is able to survive in the wild, “So it may perhaps be that, after all, that extraordinary rabbit really did wander away to live his fierce life somewhere else.”(hide spoiler)]
In interviews Richard Adams has said how the novel started. 52 years old and working for the civil service, he had never written anything before. He was driving his daughters to school when they began begging him to tell them a story.
“I had been put on the spot and I started off, ‘Once there were two rabbits called Hazel and Fiver.’ And I just took it on from there.”
He would apparently think out the next bit of the story the evening before. When the story came to an end, his daughters said it was “too good to waste, Daddy, you ought to write that down”. Watership Down was initially rejected by seven publishers and in the end accepted by a small publisher who could only afford a first print run of 2,500 copies. Now, of course, it has been sold in the millions and won many awards.
Two years later Richard Adams left the civil service to write full time. His further novels include "Shardik" (1974), "The Plague Dogs" (1977), and "The Girl in a Swing" (1980). All are excellent and highly original novels, yet none is as perfectly plotted, or as well crafted as Watership Down, in my opinion. The structure of this book is well nigh perfect; the balance between all the different elements and steady progression to its conclusion superbly balanced. In 1996 Richard Adams published a sequel entitled "Tales From Watership Down". Yet Watership Down has remained its author's most successful novel. None of his other books has ever come close to reaching the critical acclaim of his first novel.
There is a superb 1978 animated adaptation, which also is not a children's film. When those delicate watercolours of the film were revealed in the cinema, everyone was very moved and impressed. There had been nothing like it before. It was pre-digital imagery of course, and it looked so beautiful and painterly. But the amazing cinematic techniques were used to evoke the whole range of human feelings. Even now, when it was shown on British television this last Christmas, there was an uproar from parents who were shocked at the savagery and all the gory scenes; images of fighting rabbits foaming at the mouth and gashes dripping with garish red blood. Its opening scenes are deceptive, showing a stylized, cartoonish rabbit-origin myth, lulling parents into a false sense of security about this graphically bloody film.
Watership Down can be read as being about an individual having a vision, or an ideal, or not letting a dictator or a totalitarian regime take over and sap any creativity or life force. The rabbits' lives in the various warrens bring up many strong parallels to existing human societies. It is tempting to view the different rabbit warrens in the novel as different versions of human government. The Efrafan warren is clearly a totalitarian regime. Woundwort and a selected handful rule with an iron fist, while all the others are stamped on and abused. Hazel's warren represents a democracy, with a leader chosen by all the rabbits, and acting according to decisions based upon the will of the group. The author's message is that this is the best way to organise society.
There are many other implications for society to be found in the novel. The events and the descriptions send a clear warning that we need to stop our destruction of animals' homes before it is too late. Watership Down is also a statement about Nature, an environmentally conscious novel, and an attempt to give us a glimpse into the beautiful yet increasingly diminishing world of woods and grasslands.
We are constantly reminded, through the rabbits, that of all the creatures in the world, only humans break rules which the rest of nature follows. Humans kill at a whim, because they can, rather than out of necessity. They unthinkingly decimate entire populations. In building their own structures, they destroy the very living space that other animals need to survive. Many individual rabbits have their own journeys of personal growth through the novel. Holly is one such, (view spoiler)[from an order-following captain in the Owsla, to a fully self-determining, thinking and much-valued rabbit. (hide spoiler)] In his prescient words,
“Men will never rest until they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.”
There is often a tone which suggests humanity has lost something we used to have—the ability to live free, as the rabbits do. There is a strong undercurrent flowing through much of the work; a suggestion that we should live as a part of Nature rather than ignoring it. This theme of technological concern, and connection with the natural world, underpins the entire work.
So Watership Down can be read as a political, social, or environmental critique, or as a book about the search for a home and a safe life. Richard Adams himself, however, rejects all these interpretations.
“It was meant to be just a story, and it remains that. A story, a jolly good story I must admit, but it remains a story. It’s not meant to be a parable. That’s important, I think. Its power and strength come from being a story told in the car.”
My personal view is that Watership Down is a beautiful poetic myth, where the rabbits have their own language, history, religion, Art, story-telling and heroes. And it's a really good adventure story featuring rabbits, cleverly keeping their true rabbitish natures, and also imbuing them with characteristics we tend to assume (rightly or wrongly) are intrinsically human. Creation of mood is paramount in this book. It has gravity and melancholy; it has humour and joie de vivre. It was the first of its kind and never bettered.
Whatever you think in the end, one thing is certain. You will never look at rabbits in quite the same way again.
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you.”...more
Bionic Jean
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