This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Fortress
Fiction episode 12. Join me as I talk about The Wind and the Willows by
Kenneth Graham, written or published at least in 1908. In this book we
see the adventures of a riverbank community of animals including mole, rat,
and toad. I guess Badger didn't make it into this AI generated thing because he
doesn't technically live on the riverbank but that's okay. So question, does
this book belong in a place of honor in the fortress in the fortress fiction? My
answer is a firm no but more about that later. First I'm going to tell you how
you can read this book if you want to investigate it yourself. This book can be
borrowed free from Cloud Library. You can obtain it again free from Project
Gutenberg, the text file of it, and LibriVox for an audiobook version of it.
Your local library, you can also get it for you there and then you can purchase
it from the publisher's website and many other online retailers including
audiobook format or in audiobook format from Kobo and Audible. So other works by
the author which my inclusion of these here is not an endorsement of the author
or these other books it's just letting you know if you like this and you want
to investigate more of what the author is like or what more of the author's
works are you can look here and find them. So in 1894 he published Pagan
Papers. In 1895 he published The Golden Age. In 1898 he published The Head's
Woman. Dreamy Days came in 1898 which includes a story called The Relecting
Dragon and The Wind of the Willows was published in 1908 a long time later.
That's a very interesting span of years. So I have the bibliography
rather sourced in the show notes which you can find over on mjmwnews.com and
now as for the qualities of this book I'll go ahead and talk about it I made a
few notes here to discuss. So Toad is quite the scamp though he may be headed
toward reform at the end of the book perhaps and probably Toad, Mr. Toad, is
my biggest problem with this book. He's maybe... so first of all or not first of
all an amendment real quick. This book is strange in that it takes place in a
world where animals are capable of speech in human society. They're capable
of driving carriages, leading horses, harnessing them, driving automobiles,
passing as washerwomen as Toad does in the book at some point. I looked into
picture books of this, illustrated books because the original book is
illustrated and or had illustrations very early on I should say and there's a
range of approaches to the illustrations that are made. In some
illustrations the animal people are the animals are rather large very close to
human size and others they are very diminutive realistic size you would say
and others range in between. So it's a little hard to identify exactly what's
going on here and it sounds even at some point like there is an area place I
believe it's the well I can't remember which location it is actually at this
point but it sounds like oh I guess Mr. Toad's hall was begun or is it Badger's
home? I think it's Badger's home actually was something begun by people and then
there was war or some sort of unrest and people left and then Badger came into it
and added to it and finished it. I believe it was Badger's hole or his
dwelling and I couldn't tell if people was being used of animals as it had been
used previously in the book I believe or if it was being used of humans and the
problem with these anthropomorphic animals is that they have human I mean
they're anthropomorphic they are basically humans but when you mix them
into a world of actual humans then it muddies the water and makes things
difficult to understand so that's something to understand for you for you
know for the full context of this book and also I would say I don't remember
when Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and whatever was made it was before this
book in time for sure I don't remember how many years it preceded it but there's
a bit of the I was gonna say the folly of Alice there's a little bit of the absurdity
of Alice in Wonderland in this book and a little bit of like the joking and
playing with language and parlor humor I think is the word the phrase that they
used in the biography that I read the extra information like the extra
features for the Alice in Wonderland book and that's interesting a little more
entertaining in this and definitely this had much a much stronger narrative and
more of a focused story but still it feels like an adventure and it feels
like it's a little random a little be being made up on the on the fly so those
are kind of some issues I have but getting back to mr. toad he is
definitely an immoral figure at the end towards the end he is being wronged by
certain individuals and he performs a recovery arrayed a I don't know what you
would call it and I feel like he's in the right for doing that but all of his
other actions throughout the story are quite either immoral or they're morally
in the gray and I find it very curious and there are a little comments in their
concern in the book about like almost like criminal justice reform and how
the there's a train operator in there who doesn't want to be bossed around by
police on his own train he wants to be left to do what he wants to do or left
to conduct his train as he's upon connect his train as he sees fit and
there's some interesting ideas about like personal responsibility and
freedom and things like that but it's all handled in such an absurdist way and
all the crimes of mr. toad for example are hand-waved away so that it's not an
effective statement it's not a meaningful statement that's being made
it's just kind of something thrown in there and I'm not quite sure why it was
thrown in there maybe for the adults who were reading these books or this story
or this you know the stories in this book to children I'm not sure so mole
rat and badger are much better in terms of character and yet they are as
delightful as toad if not more so so you would think that if they're not cad's
and you know tricksters that they would be less entertaining as characters but
there's a sweetness to them there's a serious to them there's a bravery and a
courage they want to get they help each other out of jams let's say and they
help mr. toad out of trouble as well and honestly they're the ones who are trying
to reform him and in their efforts to reform him they have a camaraderie and a
fellowship and an understanding and like a very good stance that they take and
here you may criticize me for you know being school marmish or wanting there to
be a moral to everything and well that's so much true I definitely like rebellious
independent strong characters who are willing to buck the system when they
have to and do things that are not considered proper or things that are not
legal because they're moral and they're right but mr. toad just like he's just
like a criminal really and he's their friend and yeah they're kind of
complicit in a way because they're letting him do these things but they
try to stop him they try to intervene and they try to make him a better person
try to reform him person so he's not toad person and like I said it may not
work in the end so that's interesting but they are very interesting characters
very compelling I like their relationships with each other
most of it's not very meek the river rat that he meets who just calls rat or
ratty is very an interesting character and badgers like a he's like a more
experienced person who has been through a lot and he's trying to teach mold to
be more than he is now and badger is a mature mentor figure and he's proud of a
lot of moles actions and he really like he recognizes him for growing so much
throughout the course of the narrative and he kind of disrespects toad for
failing to grow and he helps to push his growth in his reformation so it's really
interesting let's see like I said before the narrative is a bit meandering there
were some points at which I was listening to the book and I thought how
did we get here what's going on here I don't quite understand and that's
probably a lack of attention to some extent I'll be honest but also the first
half of the book the first three or so hours of it were really good and really
kept my attention and as it went on and I realized that toad was who he was and
that the narrative was pretty okay with him being that way I mean you can argue
that it's not because he gets thrown in jail and things like that I became a
little less invested and a little I don't know more frustrated or something
with his character and it was a little bit I don't know harder to stick with
toad I definitely found everybody else's story more compelling and the parts of
the story where it focused on them was much more enjoyable so that's
interesting I think there's a better book in there but or at least one better
suited to my taste but it isn't quite there as is and therefore that's why I'm
kind of poo-pooing it this book is this is interesting to me this book is
reported to be a favorite of J.R.R. Tolkien of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and
while I can believe it given its charm and its literary flair I do find it
somewhat surprising because toad is so immoral and I would figure I know was it
a favorite book of his when he was a kid or was it a favorite of his when he was an adult
there are some interesting elements of fairy in here though that are
inexplicable and the readers get to know about them and then they're after
the fact they're de facto dramatically ironic because the two characters who
interface with the fairy are made to forget it and it's really interesting
it's a really interesting passage it's very beautifully written there's a lot
of literary merit to this as far as how it's written and how the story is
constructed or the I guess how the prose is constructed whether or not the story
you know holds as strong as the prose I think I'll say this the prose is
stronger than the story and the story is stronger than the morals yes the moral
the morality is the weakest the story is stronger than that and the prose is
stronger than both of them anyway as an aside or going down on a toll
contingent real quick there are a lot of hobbitish elements in the book as well
as something that feels like the scouring of the Shire and I'm not giving
anything away if you start the book in chapter one you'll see things that are
hobbitish and if you've read Lord of the Rings and you know what the scouring of
the Shire is then you'll understand what I'm talking about and if you haven't
it's something to look forward to and it's a fantastic part of Return of the
King so don't start the books trying thinking you'll get it right away it's
definitely at the end but it's something really cool and it's a thing I love in
Lord of the Rings one of my favorite things Lord of the Rings actually and
there's a taste of it here which is really interesting overall I enjoyed this
book but I would not immediately recommend it to young children I'd be
comfortable suggesting it to a young teen and adults with a taste for whimsy
will like will likely enjoy it I had a few outbursts of laughter while listening
to the book and it was overall very enjoyable there's just some things that
dragged for me especially with Toad who I didn't like although Toad did give me a
few laughs so it just goes to show that's how it is sometimes and overall I
did enjoy the book just it's not a part of the portrait fiction it's not a
fundamental part of it and that's all I have to say for now until next time take
care be well keep reading I hope you enjoyed that go to MJMunoz.com to
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