The Wind in the Willows is 100 years old
There are certain books that become a permanent part of your life, like an old tree that stands at the bend of a favourite path. You may not notice them, but if they were taken away, the world would be less mysterious, less friendly, less itself.
The Wind in the Willows, published 100 years ago this year, is one of those books.
Millions of other people share that feeling. Since its first publication, it has been issued in over a hundred editions and translated into many languages, with annual sales figures running into the hundreds of thousands. With Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and CS Lewis‘ Chronicles of Narnia, it is one of those rare books that speaks with the same eloquence to children and adults – and is equally beloved by both.
The pleasures of “The Wind in the Willows” are endless. Take the scene where Rat and Mole meet. Mole is shy. Rat rows across the river. Rat invites Mole to a picnic lunch. Afterward, Rat casually says, “Look here! I really think you had better come and stop with me for a little time.” Mole accepts, moves into Rat’s house, and as far as we know he is living there still. It’s an evocation of friendship right out of a fairy tale, where the prince and the princess fall in love at first sight. But it’s a fairy tale that Grahame makes real, capturing that moment when two people suddenly realize, without fanfare, that they’d rather spend time with each other than do anything else.
And always, there is the glorious language. It is apples and oranges to compare Kenneth Grahame and the two other masters of genre-blurring imaginative prose, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Grahame cannot rival Tolkien’s epic grandeur, nor does he possess Lewis’ double ability to create completely different imaginary worlds and weave vivid and intricate stories. But neither of those geniuses handle English the way he does. Tolkien knows only the high style, and Lewis’ solid prose never soars. Grahame is the inheritor of the stately style of Thomas Browne and the lyrical effusions of Wordsworth, with a little Dickens and P.G. Wodehouse thrown in as ballast.
The Wind in the Willows can be so many books during one reader’s lifetime because it is more than one book to begin with. It is at once a children’s book and an adult book, a wish-fulfillment and a satire, a comic adventure story and a poetic bildungsroman, the rollicking story of Toad and the inward-turning story of Mole. It exists half in the human world, half in the animal: the very nature of its four-legged characters is unstable. And it also tells the secret story of its author — a story few know, and one as profoundly sad as the book is profoundly happy.
Source: Salon.com
Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 8 March 1859. Excelling in both academic and sports pursuits whilst attending St. Edward’s School in Oxford, Grahame did not continue on with his dream of a university education due to financial constraints. In 1879 Grahame obtained a position within the Bank of England as a gentleman clerk but he found the routine so dulling that, from his rooms on Bloomsbury Street, turned his pen to writing stories. His first published story was titled By A Northern Furrow (1888), and his most famous short story is, still, “The Reluctant Dragon” (1898).
“One can argue over the merits of most books, and in arguing understand the point of view of one’s opponent. One may even come to the conclusion that possibly he is right after all. One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can’t criticise it, because it is criticising us. It is a Household Book; a book which everybody in the household loves, and quotes continually; a book which is read aloud to every guest and is regarded as the touchstone of his worth. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don’t be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgement of my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgement on yourself. You may be worthy: I don’t know. But it is you who are on trial.” AA Milne
Posted: December 20th, 2008
Author: Lee
Categories: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Kenneth Grahame
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