And the Melodrama goes on...

Now many books take on a life of their own.  Any reader of note can cite a half a dozen books that catch the heart and imagination of the public (Make that fifty books. Harry Potter turned the reading world on its ear more times than I can count on one hand) and a play or a film will sometimes add up to more than the sum of its parts.  We're all glad when these moments occur.   It isn't often, though that the production of a play makes that big a stir.  If a play is memorable it's revived often, people start putting new interpretations on it and pretty soon the initial production is a faint and lovely memory.  It's late and my brain may not be working but I can only think of one time where the book, the play and the production of the play all became moments that people discuss later.  And the all three are named The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

I talked about the book yesterday and mentioned how Dickens indulged his love of the theatre by incorporating a sub-plot about an acting troupe.  Well the theatre has always returned the author's affections and this novel has been brought for the stage or screen at least seven times.  The problem is, the book is such a hard property to adapt.  It has a huge case of parts and so much happens in the book that most adapters hacked off hunks of the story and the author's commentary on the social issues of Victorian England in order to get the running time down to a reasonable length.   The result was something like ordering a Dagwood sandwich and getting one without the lettuce, tomatos, onions, pickles, dressing, conditments or cheeses.  The remaining meat and bread are fine but it can't compare to the Dagwood.

Enter David Edgar and the Royal Shakespearean Company, circa 1977.  The company is on the edge of bankruptcy and the artistic director has a Brilliant Idea.   They should adapt some epic Dickens novel and do an all-out production that will either save their bacon or kill them.  Seasoned playwright, David Edgar, is brought in.   His evaluation of the material: you've got way more than 2 hours here.  Edgar adapted it to the stage and by dint of cutting what he could, reduced it to a "mere" eight-and-one-half hours.  More than ten hours if you count potty breaks. 

For this Edgar kept in all the subplots and the best of the commentary and the actors went to work researching the source material.  For example, one actress read up on the health care of Victorian England and learned why Fanny Squeers admired the hero's "very straight legs."   Times and nutrition being what they were, straight legs were less common than rickets.  The rest divided up the novel amongst themselves and figured out how to keep the picturesque language while the Director tried to figure out how to cast 40 people into a hundred parts and stage a ten hour play that takes place all over England.

How did I learn about all this?  Nicholas Nickleby became the project that wouldn't die and the interest it generated in the UK and the US was phenomenal.  First it swept all the theatrical awards in Great Britain and two years later, the company came to American and walked off with all of the Tony awards.  People stood on line to see a nightly 4 hour performance (they broke the play in half meaning you had to buy tickets twice if you wanted to see the whole show once) where 40-50 actors tumbled on and off a bare stage playing different parts and good collided with evil out front, in the aisles and sometimes ran through the audience.   It was thrilling theatre and the RSC made more money than the accountants could hide.

The play is sound and has been revived once or twice but when anyone talks about seeing the stage version of Nickleby, they mean the RSC production of the early 1980's.  Luckily those performances did get filmed and they're re shown periodically.  It's one of the few times when an adaptation is remarkably faithful to the book.

If you are interested, the play "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" is by David Edgar and Leon Rubin, the RSC director that brought Edgar's play to life wrote a book about that legendary production, The Nicholas Nickelby Story.  (Well, what else would you call it?)  For those who love all three versions (like me: I have the novel, the play, the book on the production and the blessed production on DVD) the Rubin book gives incredible back-story on the development of that theatrical history and it is well worth the read. And if you still can't get enough, I know of some similar material that might interest you.   You see, there's other books by this bloke, Charles Dickens...

Melodrama by a master

It's almost winter again and I keep thinking the books of Dickens.  For many of us, Dickens is an immutable part of this season although I don't think he reached that place just because of his famous Christmas tale. Winter is a melodramatic mix of beauty, fear and hope, just like his stories and the first one that comes to mind is The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

  Nickleby is Dickens's third novel and by that time he had his formula down pat.  There's the hero, young  Nicholas, impetuously ready to take up arms against every unjust cause he meets; there's his impossibly good and patient sister Kate who is just a little too close to her brother for twenty-first century sensibilities and their addle-pated mother.  There's a rogue's gallary of baddies to threaten them including the sneering, high-born, louse, Sir Mulberry Hawk (whose picture should be in the dictionary by the term "sexual predator.")  For those who favor the emotionally crippled-bad guy, Uncle Ralph Nickleby spends his life and reason plotting for money and vengeance on our hero since people like Nicholas but they don't like him!  (Seriously, this guy needed therapy!)   There are other not-so-nice guys but for sheer nerve, the Yorkshire schoolmaster, Wackford Squeers is the best of the baddies.   He looks hideous (Dickens says "He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two") and he's cheap, malevolent and  none too bright.  Just the guy you'd want in a schoolmaster.

The school background was another piece of the Dickens formula; where the novel targets social reform.  Yorkshire schools weren't really schools at that time, they were storage places for unwanted boys.   Illegitimate boys, boys from a previous marriage or brats who wouldn't behave were often shipped to some place in Yorkshire with the word "school" or "academy" in its name and they rarely came home again.  (God knows what happened to the girls, probably places like Lowood School in Jane Eyre!).  The fees weren't that expensive and the "schoolmasters" made a profit by spending even less on their "students"  than they got.  Dickens found out about the systematic child neglect and turned a big, white spotlight on it in Nickleby.  Committees were formed, investigations started and Yorkshire schools went out of fashion.  I've always wondered what happened to the survivors.

Dickens knew how melodramatic this story is (and it is, with amazing coincidences, heart-rending renunciations and retribution galore) and to enhance its theatricality, he added a sub-plot involving a not-so-talented theatrical troupe.  Here, overacting is taken to splendid heights and the manager's daughter is continually referred to as "The Infant Phenomena".  Not Ninetta (her name) or Miss Crummles (a title she's old enough to use) but "The Infant Phenomena".  In one way Miss Crummles suffers maltreatment like a Yorkshire schoolboy as her parents purposely kept her sleepless and drunk in order to keep her short but this episode is strictly for laughs.  The Infant is the spoiled darling who gets the best scenes in every production and her parents' treatment is seen as misguided vocational training instead of neglect.  So Nickleby has relieving sequences of comedy as well as drama and since this is Dickens, almost everything works out for the best.

Yes, December is a mix of the highs and the lows: bitter weather, warm celebrations, pageantry, anxiety and hope.  It's a perfect season for holidays with their attendant melodrama.  That makes it a perfect setting  for Nicholas Nickleby as well.  I hope you enjoy it all.

Some thoughts on an American Myth: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Mythology is a fascinating subject.  The elders of every culture create stories that explains their view of the world to themselves.  They pass those views and stories on to their descendents and the children incorporate or revise those stories to suit their own world view.  An observant human can trace the changes of a civilization by reviewing the variations in a myth.  As cultures go, the American one is still fairly young and versatile but there are a few stories that have lodged in our national psyche and show signs of becoming a cultural touchstone.  One of the strongest is the children's classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The Wonderful Wizard is about 114 years old now and has attained a level of popularity that Harry Potter only dreams about.  Between the author and his publishers, more than 40 sequels of the original story were published and another fifty or so accompanying and revisionist novels or comic books have been added to that list.  There are a dozen and a half movie adaptations, about two dozen stage productions and enough material referencing Dorothy Gale's adventures to sink the Emerald City.  Every generation since its birth has reviewed, amended, attacked and paid homage to L. Frank Baum's tale.  What is it about this story that gets to us?

First, I think is the character of Dorothy herself.  Although she travels to marvelous places and enjoys the company of fabulous and fascinating creatures, the heroine never sees herself as anything more or less than Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the niece of Henry and Em.  When the Munchkins assume Dorothy is a sorceress, she corrects them and her biggest complaint about the Wizard is his lack of honesty.  Dorothy is not born for great destiny nor does she attain unusual powers as other heroes do.  Dorothy is simply Dorothy and except for the shoes and her cap, she succeeds because of the virtues and sense she got from her prairie home.  Dorothy is the commoner that walks with kings while retaining her populist sense, a virtue America has always cherished.

Of course Kansas is no match for Oz when it comes to beauty.  Baum makes it clear that a pioneering life is hard, hard enough to steal any beauty or joy from Dorothy's aunt and uncle.  Nevertheless, Kansas is home and Dorothy will meet every challenge to get back there.  The sentiment Baum put in his tale is fervently echoed in the 1939 film.   No matter what Oz has, "there's no place like home."   Not, "There's no place lovelier" or "There's no place better."  It is  just that home is unique and there are no substitutes.

Finally, it's important to note the heroes in The Wonderful Wizard (and its adaptations) all feel they lack something sorely needed.  The scarecrow wants brains, the tin man a heart, the lion wants courage and Dorothy, the way home.   If you look at the parallel novel, Wicked, Elphaba also wants something, the acceptance of family and friends.   Of course Dorothy's companions already have their resources; they simply can't recognize these assets without the aid of the wizard's deception.   Dorothy also has the means to achieve what she wants although she doesn't learn this until the last.  The silver shoes (or ruby slippers, if you prefer MGM) that carry her feet through Oz can fly her home to Kansas.   Elphaba cannot receive what her family cannot give but her strength develops as she gives herself  the acceptance and approval she sought in them.  Taken in total, these stories suggest that each individual has the needed resources to achieve his or her own goals.  Success depends on whether on that person is willing to put those resources to work.  This is central to the American emphasis on the individual and the belief in a self-controlled destiny.  Beneath the lion's medal and the ruby slippers you can see the credo of America's pioneers.

Of course, the successes and failures of future generations will revise and add to our beliefs.  It will be entertaining to see these changes in future returns to Oz, since our interest in the fable shows no signs of waning.  It's so close to our sub-conscious now, I wonder if we'll recite it, like poetry.  Sometime in a later age, when students chant the words of this nation, is this how the chorus will run?

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Four score and seven years ago,
Dorothy lived on the great Kansas prairie-
This land was made for you and me.

In Praise of Southern Mamas: All Over But the Shoutin

There is something special about a Southern Mama.  I used to explain it by saying I moved to Alabama because, "I married a Southern Boy.  And Southern Boys don't get too far away from their mamas."  That usually got a laugh because, on one level, it's true.  Southern mothers are strong women and their children respond to that strength.  These women have raised generations of kids who know Mama is stronger than anyone except Grandma or God Almighty.  Dads are dads and everyone should have a good one but no one's more certain than Mom.  That standard was true of my southern mother-in-law and it is certainly true about Rick Bragg's mother.  In All Over But the Shoutin',  his mom is the heroine of the story and the center of his life.

To hear Rick tell it, life should have been nicer to Margaret Marie Bundrum.  Although she was born into a large family in one of the poorer areas of the United States, the country was beautiful, her family was loving and her father provided for them all by building houses and making moonshine.  It was a reasonable childhood for that area and at seventeen, Margaret Marie had the looks southern girls use to change their luck.   Instead she married a man who made her life twice as hard.

All Over But the Shoutin' is the account of how Rick's mama came back from that marriage and how her sons grew up in the shadow of their strong, loving mother.  Margaret Bragg didn't have the vocational skills or education to make her life or her sons' lives easy but she worked hard so they could go further in the world.   Margaret took every hard-labor job and government program available to keep her boys healthy and fed and they took their own roads in time.  Sam, the eldest, followed his mother into a lifetime of physical labor but Rick, through a combination of talent and luck, became a reporter, studied at Harvard and earned a Pulitzer Prize.  The reporter made mistakes and was hypersensitive about his antecedents but he was a good boy to his mama: she was there when he got the Pulitzer and, with the prize money, he bought her a house.

A house is something extra special to folks like Rick, his mom and my mother-in-law.   After years of rented trailers and space heaters a legitimate, solid home that you own "free-and-clear" is saying goodbye to an ache.  My mother-in-law did it, through entrepreneurship (she'd fuss at me for using such a ridiculous word) and thrift and Rick's family did it with talent and drive.  I sit comfortably in my own home now and marvel at their work.   Whatever I accomplish in this world comes from those who did much more.

There's a book about Alabama sharecroppers called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men .  The title is ironic since most sharecroppers aren't well known.  But that book and All Over But the Shoutin' make one thing abundantly clear.   These are the people that should be celebrated, especially the Southern Mamas.

Replaying Human History in Space: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Writers steal, that's a fact.  You can call it an homage, revisionism or Fried Wild Peacock, but the fact is the roots of almost every popular written work can be traced to some other writer's creation or an event the writer experienced.  What makes the work interesting is what happens to the source material once the writer pushes it through the filter of his or her imagination.   That's when you get parodies, like Bored of the Rings or revisions like Wicked or Wide Sargasso Sea.   With Robert Heilein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you get a recounting of what the American Revolution could have been like, if America had been in outer space.

It goes like this: after creating a life-sustaining habitat on the moon, mankind initially developed the sphere as a planetary sized Alcatraz for its criminals and political malcontents.  No guards or monitoring are needed since the prisoners cannot escape and Earthlings enjoy a serene existence with their agitators gone.   Decades after transportation been halted, the descendents of the original settlers (Lunar colonists or "Loonies") now supply Earth's population with food.  Of course a lot of technology is used to run the colony and one of those descendants, Manny O'Kelly-Davis is the technician to the moon's largest computer, the HOLMES IV.

Think of the HOLMES IV as an enormous server that looks after all of the transactions needed to exist on the moon.  (Now remember this book was written before the age of servers, networks and cloud computing).   Given the computer's capabilities and sedentary nature, Manny  renamed his charge Mycroft after Sherlock's smarter brother then shortens it to Mike.  By programming it, testing it and tinkering with the computer, Manny has learned something about Mike that no one else knows: the computer's self-aware.

It's Mike's abilities that twist this traditional story.   Mike performs the calculations that demonstrate the lunar colonists must break away from their earth-bound governors to avoid starving themselves to death.  Mike is also instrumental in developing the revolutionary organization necessary to overthrow earth's sovereign government and the tactics necessary for winning a revolutionary war.  To Mike, this is a fun intellectual exercise that lets him interface with more people (he's a friendly computer) but to Manny and the Lunar colonists, Mike is their secret weapon and their strongest chance to achieve freedom.  The book is good enough that when the battle begins, you'll care what happens to the computer.

Heinlein introduced many pet ideas into this novel, like sentient machines and line marriage but the essential story is repeated time and again in history.  When one group exploits the resources of another and gives little or no return, the victimized group will eventually declares a need for self-governance and revolt.  It's happened before and it will happen again.  Heinlein just imagined how it will happen once we move out into the stars.

On reflection, this book may not be stolen material.  Perhaps, as Willa Cather wrote, there are only two or three human stories and we go on repeating them as if we were the first.  If so, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the story of each culture's need for self-governance.  Heinlein just set it in a culture we haven't created yet.

The perfect place to stay in France: The Hotel Pastis

Some books are like a vacation.   Open the covers, look at the first paragraph and you're on your way to some exotic location, away from the everyday grind. You can go hunting with Hemingway, rafting with Twain or sailing with Thor Heyerdahl.  Those vacations are wonderful, but come along with me to the South of France.  You won't have to pack a bag or learn the language but you must bring along your sense of humor.   It's required when you check in to The Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle made enough wealth and fame in advertising to retire early to a farmhouse in France.  Then he became internationally rich and famous writing about his retired life.   The Hotel Pastis is a novel but there's enough about advertising and the South of France there to suggest it's a thinly disguised memoir with just enough fiction in it to keep people from suing.   Truth or libel, the book is a treat.

The hero, Simon Shaw, is a man in need of an interest.  His work life doesn't fascinate him any more: the ad agency he helped build is so successful that all he does is butter up clients, cash the checks and argue with his partners.  His personal life is equally boring: the second ex-wife just left taking her wardrobe, her mean mind and a lawyer's ransom of money but leaving a blah, empty home.  Under orders to cheer up, Simon takes a driving holiday through the South of France. Then a car accident strands him in one of those sunny villages that tourists dream about: a place away from the world; a place where the day can be savored with the food and wine; a place to start life over again.

There is a sub-plot involving bicycles and a bank heist but the best parts of The Hotel Pastis are the people in Simon's world.  There's Jordan, Simon's dyed-in-tweed British partner who lives to fulfill every cliche of English Life, and Zeigler, Jordan's American counterpart. There's Ernest, Simon's  majordomo in England and a surprising aide-de-camp in France.   Luckily for Simon, there's also Nicole Bouvier, the blonde who captures his interest and gives him the idea for a project: the Hotel Pastis.

No, this isn't great literature but that's not why I go back to this book.  "Great literature" doesn't always seem that great when it's dark and cold outside.  Instead, I'll pick up The Hotel Pastis and watch sunlight bounce off of the cover.  The heat of Provence will radiate from the pages and take the chill out of this room.  A soft breeze will flow with the chapter and I'll hear the irresistible chink of ice in a pitcher and the click of balls on a boules court.  I can smell the fields of lavender already.  Y'all enjoy your cold, hard December.  I'm taking the next book to France.

Introducing Scottish Noir

There are a lot of genres in crime fiction.  There are cozy mysteries and hard-boiled detective tales, capers and whodunits.  There are police procedurals, legal thrillers, psychological suspense books and we'll have some more genres next Tuesday.  In the meantime, one of my current favorite writers is Val McDermid, the journalist who created what she calls "Scottish Noir".    This means her characters have the uncompromising, tough and amoral personalities the frequented Dashiell Hammett's novels but McDermid's stories are settled in the cold, bleak areas of Scotland.    Add to this mix a set of villains so strange that Thomas Harris could have invented them and you've got Scottish Noir.  These books aren't for everyone but, boy, are they good.  McDermid is best known for her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill series but if you want an introduction to her work, I'd start off with the thriller, A Place of Execution.

A Place of Execution is about the twin investigations into the disappearance of Alison Carter, an adolescent that disappeared one night in December of 1963.  Allison's home was Scardale, a one-road village where half a dozen families have lived since the world began.  The young Detective Inspector, George Bennett, has to figure out what happened to Allison, no easy task since he's a stranger and the locals of Scardale don't trust him.  Two other children recently disappeared in the next larger town and Detective Bennett fears the missing Allison is a third victim.  Add that George Bennett is a decent chap at the beginning of his career and marriage and you have a policeman who suffers when a child vanishes on his watch.  And Alison does, right into the cold, night air of Scotland.  Though the police find her dog and evidence of a crime, they never find her body or bones.

Thirty-five years later, Catharine Heathcote is primed to write a book about the Alison Carter case.  A journalist who was the same age as Alison, she remembers the girl's disappearance and the effect it had on her young life.  Now she has the chance to review the evidence and maybe draw out a few ghosts.  Catharine also runs the risk of re-opening wounds.  George Bennett is still haunted by the girl he could never bring home.  And although it seems modern, much of Scardale hasn't changed since 1963.  Like its habit of keeping secrets.

A Place of Execution has much to recommend it, including pace, tension and some very interesting characters.  Still, it is not for the faint of heart.  Terrible things happen in the world, according to Val McDermid, and the only chance for justice is when the good guys are as tough as the bad ones.  If you can accept that fact, you'll survive it seems, in these stories of Scottish Noir.  If you can't, do yourself a favor and don't walk out alone.

Reference Books you can Love

It's easy to fall in love with fiction.  If the writer's done his/her job, a reader can sit back with a well-formed story, a balanced plot and distinctive characters with unforgettable lines.   Everything should work out in fiction.   Non-fiction's not quite so easy.  Perhaps the hero didn't have a memorable speech or the author missed meeting that all-important member of the cast.  That author can either tell the truth or stretch it, both of which create their own downsides but, if a talented writer finds an interesting subject and is willing to do the research, some non-fiction books are terrific.   But reference books are the Rodney Dangerfields in a printed world: they rarely get any respect, so nobody wants to write them.  Without plot or characters, the tomes seldom get attention.  I know of three exceptions to the rule.  You can read them for reference or for pleasure but either way, you'll never be bored.

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. 

 This book is history, itself.  An English publisher named Beeton talked his wife into assembling this household bible in the 1850's and for decades it reigned in the homes of British middle and upper class citizens while Victoria reigned on the throne.  Ninety percent of the book is recipes (Wikipedia tells me the Downton Abbey team uses it for source material) but the remaining material is the treasure; this section gives the lady of the house the knowledge she needs for her life.   Which domestic should be hired first, what they should be paid and what are each of their duties?  Beeton tells this and then outlines how each job should be performed so a young wife could check behind the maid.  There's a section on childhood diseases and compounding simple medicines.  Medical and legal concepts are explained here as well as etiquette, economy, how to set up an efficient kitchen and profitably spend a day.   This book is an insight into British life itself during the years of Victoria and it's fascinating to read.  I don't cook and I'm hopeless at entertaining but I'll keep my copy of Beeton's.   With her, I think I could out-do Martha Stewart.

An Incomplete Education

Can you tell what a life my copy's led?   I got it in the early 1990's, when I was self-conscious about my unfinished college degree.  I thought the dear book could help me appear less unlettered in conversation with graduates.  Since then I've read untold numbers of books, picked up my sheepskin and talked with enough intellectual drop-outs and ignorant alumni to sink a small island but I keep going back to this book because An Incomplete Education's not just informative, it's fun.

Every section is well-laced with humor (well, every section I go back to - I usually skip the science) and has titles like, "American Intellectual History and Stop That Snickering."  If you've gone through the novels of Jane Austen and are lost in the shrubbery, this book explains the difference between the style, the weir and the haha.  (Yes, that's right, a haha.)  And it's full of bits that stick in the memory like differentiating between Shelley and Keats. (Between the two, Keats was more stable, emotionally.  He's the one you could play handball with.)   Does it substitute for a college education?  Of course not.  Is it more fun to read than your senior project?   Gee, what do you think?

The Elements of Style

This may be the most neglected book on the planet.  Every writer, every educator and many administrators I know swear by the book and beg others to follow it.  I understand that newly-minted Alabama attorneys receive copies from the appellate court with instructions to follow its dicta when writing.  Entire websites are devoted to it.   But does anyone read it?  I don't think so, except me and a word-struck cousin.  Many of the paperbacks I find look unopened and covered with dust. That's a shame.  Between these unassuming covers lie the keys to the kingdom.

Some background: Professor Strunk came up with some basic composition rules for his students at Cornell and he distributed these in small, brown, bound books .  Many of the students kept their books including one E. B. White, who later wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.  Like many of his classmates, he remembered the book with affection.  When it was finally published, he added the section, "An Approach to Style."

Professor Strunk's rules are a guide to producing clean, serviceable prose, the meat-and-potatoes of literature.  These cover anything from where to put the apostrophe (Charles's books!) to making the meaning clear ("Omit Needless Words!).  This part can seem pedantic and some critics insist the authors violate their own instructions on occasion but this guide is still referred to because it works.  Following these rules helps you create reasonable, unpretentious prose.

Now my secret: I read E. B. White's section on style for pleasure.  As a writer, Mr. White used simple, clear language to express ideas and impressions.   His narratives develop so seamlessly that each paragraph seems like the inevitable result of the last.  He makes writing look easy.  In "An Approach to Style" White talks about how a writer is revealed by his or her choices and how using a simple narrative style keeps the story flowing.  His suggestions don't have the stentorian mandate of "Omit needless words" but they are persuasive, partly because they're expressed so well.  Since all writing is an attempt at communication, Mr. White's suggestions clear out any language that obscures the message.  This essay is a remarkable work.

Of course, these are not run of the mill reference books.  Many reference tomes are as dense and dull as you'd expect so I'm campaigning for these.   In a field where dull books fill shelves like lumps of lead, Beeton's, Incomplete and The Elements are pure gold.

"I announce with trembling pleasure the appearance of a great story..."

I'll never forget reading that blurb.  It was on the back of a beige book my mother had brought from the library and when I read it, I said, "Well, that's a bit much.  I flipped the book over and looked at the pen-and-ink cover drawing and the red and black type underneath. It still didn't look very promising.   I looked askance at my mother who shrugged her shoulders.  "Read it or don't" she said. "I thought you might like it, you liked animal stories when you were little."  She looked at the cover and added.  "It has rabbits in it."  That's how I met Watership Down.

I didn't know it at the time but I was merely the latest in a long line of people to underestimate this story, starting with its author.  Richard Adams entertained his daughters during rides to school with stories of what they saw along the way: country roads and rabbits.  It wasn't until the girls demanded a written account that he started to shape the tale.  Then, four publishers and three agents turned down the manuscript saying "Adults won't read an animal story and it's far too scary for kids."  The publisher who printed the first edition couldn't afford to make many books but he did make a point of getting those copies into the hands of influential critics.  The praise was heard in America and the rest, as they say, is history.  The world fell in love with Watership Down.

For the book isn't just a story of anthropomorphized hares.  If that's what you want (which is fine!) other stories have bunnies that wear clothes and have cunning homes with furniture.   Watership Down is an epic where rag-tag wanderers venture into the Great Unknown when their home is threatened with extinction.  They face terror and danger from unexpected sources and they learn to trust each other for survival.  There's humor and pathos, courage and unexpected luck like there should be in any adventure story and there's even a bit of information about rabbits.  Mr. Adams consulted the best rabbit expert he could find when he wrote Watership Down and tried to incorporate the man's knowledge.  In other words, its an adventure story where the heroes happen to be rabbits.

There's also love for the land in this tale and nothing pleased me more than to learn Watership Down really exists.  The country is in Hampshire, between the village of Kingsclere and Highclere Castle, site of the popular series "Downton Abbey".  At least two web sites have been created to give visitors a virtual tour of the sites in the novel (Bits and Bobstones and Journey to the Real Watership Down) and it seems the locals are used to findng fans of the novel wandering around the Beech Tree.  I have my own reasons for wanting to visit that country (there's a huge historic horse stable there) but I'd count myself lucky to stand near the summit and echo Blackberry in saying, "Come and look, you can see the whole world."

So yes, I still love this story of rabbits which is and is not true.  As long as courage is needed and friends are true and evil must be resisted, there's a need for Watership Down.   And bless the critic that wrote, "I announce with trembling pleasure the appearance of a great story..."   That person spoke the truth.

King Arthur when he was The Wart.

Is it true that children no longer read The Sword in the Stone?  A friend of mine with kids says so.  Between dystopias, vampires, diseases and monsters, kids are skipping the fantasy that stood the  Arthurian legend on its head and that makes me sad.  Almost two generations of readers have come of age with no idea of White beyond a Disney movie or a Broadway show their grandparents talked about.  Forgive them, Merlin, they don't know what they've missed.

For one thing, they skip on a wonderful story with a  delicious sense of humor.  Malory  wrote about Arthur's birth in Le Morte D'Arthur but we never get to see the young prince grow up; he goes from infant to sword-puller in less than a thousand words and there's no guessing what happened in between.  T. H. White invented all that by mixing modern sensibilities with chivalric legends and he did it with a sense of humor.

One good example (a disgusting one but good) is the subject of fewmets, something the roaming King Pellinore knows a good deal about.  His sole object in life is to chase after the Questing Beast and a required part of the hunt is to collect fewmets, droppings of the beast pursued, so the hunter can track it.  This is an honest-to-God Medieval English term, but as Pellinore says, it's an unsanitary habit.  Between his hunting dog's tendency to wander and the mess he has to make scooping fewmets, the poor king becomes quite discouraged and would rather the Questing Beast chased itself.   Well, you can see the poor man's point.  Only T. H. White could find an ancient hunting practice, turn it into a bathroom joke and use that to develop a character.  Another joke at the end of the book is that once the new King has proven his heritage by pulling the Sword from the Stone, he's covered up with requests to help unstick doors, open bottles and fix other domestic emergencies. I love imagining the letters (Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but you must be fair strong, having pulled that pig-sticker from the Rock.  Could you open a jam jar for me?)  There's a lot of laughter in this book.

There's also a lot of natural history.  T. H. White had a keen interest in the natural world  and he  shows it off in The Sword in the Stone by having the young Arthur (known to everyone as Wart) temporarily transformed into various animals by his tutor, Merlyn.  It's a marvelous education.  The Wart learns about the corruption of power from the strongest fish in the moat, the effect of regimentation from ants, democracy from geese and the significance of mankind from a badger.  They're wonderful lessons and a good reminder that mankind, for all of our smarts and power, is just one of many species on this earth.  That's a lesson we often forget.

Well, T. H. White's books may be gathering dust right now but his influence is certainly felt.  A lot of the Wart's open, honest character and his unseen destiny can be traced to Neil Gaiman's Timothy Hunter and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter.  And some books return, like the seasons.  Watch and be patient and someone will rediscover the Castle of the Forest Sauvage, Archimedes, Robin Wood and the Wart.  Someone else will mention The Questing Beast and we'll all be off again, laughing about fewmets, talking about T. H. White and rereading The Once and Future King.  And I'll be sitting in a corner with Archimedes the Owl, nodding and saying, "I thought so."