A Slight Adjustment of Phrasing

 

The Kingdom of the Cults: From The Shadow Library

 

The Kindom of the Cults, by Walter R. Martin. I got my copy of this book in the early Eighties, as I recall, mostly to read what he had on the Jehovah's Witnesses. We had left them, but were still untangling ourselves emotionally from the group. As a Baptist, Martin wasn't particularly pleased with the Catholic Church, but gave Catholic Christians a soft pass as they believed in the divinity of Christ. It was interesting to read how various other religions, from Mormonism to Islam, differed from mainstream Christian belief. Not sure when I parted with my copy. It has been updated in the new century with material by the somewhat controversial evangelical minister Ravi Zacharias, who has since been posthumously "defrocked" for alleged sexual misconduct. Whether that would effect his scholarship in the new edition I do not know, but anyway I had the earlier, solo effort. The title has turned up twice in my recent podcast viewing, which recalled the book to memory.

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page Twenty-Two

 

“Now, let’s begin alphabetically,” he said briskly. “Bob Bellamy?”

“Here, sir,” I chirped brightly, raising my hand. I stood up and marched over to the desk.

“Ah, Mr. Bellamy’s son!” he said, and gave me a tight little official smile as he rustled a form out of a file. “So nice to meet you in person at last.” He bent over the document and began making out a note.

“May I have your papers, please?” He extended his free hand without looking up.

I stopped, taken aback.

“Papers?”

Mr. Williams looked up at that, eyes widening in mild surprise.

“Application, testimonials, so on and so forth?”

“Ah … I … I didn’t know I needed any.” I was at a loss. I began unconsciously patting my pockets, as if the wanted articles might magically appear. I didn’t have so much as a calling card. “My Pa was bringing me in, but he got called away. I expect he’s got any of that, but he never told me about it. I guess he was pretty much going to be my testimonial,” I finished lamely.

“Oh. I see.” He began shuffling his forms, looking put out by the deviation from the system. “Oh, dear.” He rearranged his papers some more, shook his head as if clearing his mind, and looked up pleasantly. “I suppose that given the circumstances we can take the formalities as read, for now. After all, it isn’t every day that the son of an eminent agent comes following in his father’s footsteps.”

Rank snorted at that, as if all his suspicions had been vindicated. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Rose looking at me differently, re-evaluating me in her appraisal.

“Thank’ee, sir.” I was relieved but blushing all the same. I felt I was not quite living up to expectations and had been caught on one foot.

“You will in time have to produce them, however,” Mr. Williams concluded warningly. It was as good as a dismissal. He began checking his papers again. Rank watched him attentively, tensing in readiness as I returned to my seat, rather ashamed that I hadn’t performed as expected.

The Secretary looked up.

“Rosemary Calhoun,” He announced. Rank shrank back in his seat.

Another Birthday on the Books

 

Today, as of 12:04 PM, I became officially 59 years old. I had already had a wonderful birthday party (observed) yesterday, as Sunday was a good day when the local family could get together, and we had a very enjoyable kind of continuance on this, the actual day. Among other nice things that happened, Kelsey took me by the library bookstore, where I picked up these two volumes.

The first is Norwegian Folk Tales, by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe, one of the reprints of classic volumes by The Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library. There are illustrations by the great Theodor Kittelsen, as well as by Erik Werenskiold. It will go well with my other Pantheon collections of tales.

The second is Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris, the second book in a trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt, which covers the years he was President. I had recently heard good things about these books, especially the first one, the Pulitzer prize-winning The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.  The third book, Colonel Roosevelt, follows the post-White House years to his death. For $3, I thought this was a good place to start, and the Universe seemed to be suggesting it.

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page Twenty-One

 

It was the Secretary of the Department, returned at last. I took him in in a flash. He was a mild, pleasant-looking man with dark eyes, hair-colored hair, dressed very well, with excellent upright posture and squared back shoulders. The only anomaly was that he was carrying a clear glass pitcher of water. He stopped as he stepped into the room, eyes widening slightly as he calmly assessed the situation. Then he walked over, opened the lid, and poured the water into the stove in a business-like manner. There was a loud hiss and I stopped panicking and gaped at him as the smoke began to clear.

The Secretary set the pitcher down on his desk next to a water glass there. He sat and coughed discreetly into the back of his left hand.

“Oh, dear,” he murmured. Otherwise, he ignored the clearing smoke. His movements were precise and unhurried as he drew a key out of his vest pocket, opened a desk drawer, took out a file filled with several papers, flipped it open, glanced over the papers, then straightened them up. Only then did he look up at us and seemed surprised at Rose and me standing there, looking like we’d been caught with our hand in the cookie jar. “Oh, please, be seated.” His voice was cordial.

We walked over timidly and took our seats. Rank smirked at us. When we were in our chairs the man put the file down and folded his hands.

“Good morning. I am Mr. Williams, Department Secretary.” He smiled. “Now, just to be sure we are the same page, each of you are here applying to become agents of the D.E.A., correct?” We all nodded, murmuring assent. “Excellent, excellent.” He shuffled the papers a bit, put them down, and looked at us seriously but almost apologetically.

“Now before we begin, I must tell you … the budget at this time only allows for one new agent. After a brief apprenticeship, that position will be offered to only one of you.”

We cut their eyes at each other; we had now become, as it were, rivals, and I know that I was suddenly assessing the others as such. The man went on.

“Until that time, you will be housed and fed by the Bureau, allowed a small stipend, and trained and evaluated by various teachers and agents.” His voice changed, as if declaiming company policy by rote. “While only one of you may become an agent at that time, there are lesser positions available if you have the skills and talent. And of course, when resources expand or vacancies open, you may always apply for agent again.”

He snapped back to present time.

“Now, let’s begin alphabetically,” he said briskly. “Bob Bellamy?”

In the Midst of Life

[Uncle Bazzell, Mom (looking less than happy) and Uncle Burnice]

Yesterday evening I learned that Mom's brother, our Uncle Burnice Cowan, had passed away the night before, July 20th, about 10:30 PM. He had been recovering from a triple bypass in January and was waiting for better conditions to have a pacemaker put in. He was 82.

My first thought after the surprise and sadness was that the last family witness of Mom's early life was gone, and that any questions or stories that we might have asked about her will go unanswered forever in this world. He was a genial presence when he was around, at holidays, weddings, and funerals, but we never got particularly close to him (his long distance home partly saw to that). I always liked him; he was the family glue of the Cowans and even took up tracking and tracing the genealogy. I feel sorry for Aunt Sylvia, his sons Chris and Mark, and his grandchildren, whom we last saw at Kelesy's wedding, and I know something of what they must be going through. He had a good run, lasting the longest of Nanny's kids. My final rather selfish thought is wondering if he ever had a chance to read my book. 

A Jaw-Breaking Lesson

 

When I was in Fourth Grade, I was actually persuaded (despite my shyness) to run for class president, in a school project to see how elections worked. My opponent, from a rather rich family, was able to offer everyone who voted for him a box of jawbreakers. I, of course, was not. I don’t know why they felt the necessity to offer a bribe; he was already much more popular than I was. When I inevitably lost, they felt compelled to force me to take a box of candy, I suppose to assuage their consciences and make me complicit with their schemes. I did learn a lot about elections.

Interior Castle: The Shadow Library

 

Interior Castle, by St. Teresa of Avila (Translated by E. Allison Peers)

I bought this book long before I even thought of becoming a Catholic, because I understood it was supposed to be a classic of the Middle Ages. I might even have thought it had some connection to the medieval art of memory. I never really got into reading it and it was somewhat brittle in the spine which made it physically difficult to do so. Not sure when I passed it on.

Holy Maidenhood! It's Ancrene Wisse!

 

[Like this first imprint, but glossier and browner.]

So today I got, quite unexpectedly early (delivery was listed for August 12^th or later) what I had ordered for my special birthday gift this year: Ancrene Wisse, [“also known as the Ancrene Riwle or Guide for Anchoresses); it is an anonymous monastic rule (or manual) for female anchoresses (someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life) – Wikipedia], written in the early 13th century, published by the Early English Text Society in 1962,  but most importantly for me, edited by and with a preface from J. R. R. Tolkien. It is ‘illustrated’ by two photo-reproductions of pages of its beautiful script.

          This has to be the most attenuated object of my Tolkien veneration. It has nothing to do with Middle-earth or the Legendarium. For the 222 pages of Middle English religious instruction, there is exactly two-and-one-third pages of a preface from the Professor, mostly linguistically technical in nature. The volume itself, though the only information supplied is a first publishing date is 1962, is almost certainly a more recent reprint. Reading it all (with my 30 years distance from one college class in Middle English – I was hoping for a modern English crib on one side, but no such luck; it was obviously produced for serious students already familiar with the language) would undoubtedly prove more difficult than reading The Old English Exodus (which collects J.R.R. Tolkien's text and translation of the Old English poem that is known as Exodus. They are accompanied by a commentary that has been produced by editing his notes for a series of informal lectures delivered to a specialist class in Oxford in the 1930s and 1940s. Although dated 1981, the book was actually published in January 1982. 3,000 copies were printed and it has not been reprinted. – Tolkien Gateway. The only other scholarly work by Tolkien that I do not have, because a copy runs to almost $2000 these days). My feelings about and reasons for getting this volume are almost as torturous as this paragraph.

But what of such difficulties? I felt compelled to own a copy of Ancrene Wisse, and at $40 it was in my range. I now intend to somehow copy and append Tolkien’s essay Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad, from the 1929 Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. 14; then I should have everything Tolkien published on the subject in one place. Excelsior!

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page Twenty

 

Rose and I stood happily close to the stove, warming our hands at the rising heat, now and then glancing at each other and smiling, then gazing around the room. The fact that we were so close to one another and doing something together was making us feel unaccountably shy. So much so that we didn’t notice at first that a dark green smoke had started creeping out of the seams of the stove. When I did look down, I was jolted by the alarming sight.

“Oh!” I yelped. “Oh! Oh, what…?”

“Ah!” Rose stepped back with a little cry. “Ah!”

I reached through the rising fumes to check the stove-pipe damper, rattling it, but it nothing happened.

“Well, do something!” Rose exclaimed.

“I’m trying!” I yipped back.

“I told you.” Rank’s voice was calm, even triumphant. “I told you. I told you to leave it alone.”

“Oh, quiet, you!” Rose said crossly. “Bob, what’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know!” I was getting frantic. I reached out and touched the stove handle but winced away. It was already hotter than I thought. I grabbed it more gingerly with two fingers and opened the door. More green smoke bellowed out. I waved my hand and choked “Good Lord!”

“What do we do? What do we do?”

Rose and I ran around like scared chickens looking for something to help, a bucket of sand or any liquid to dash on the flames, but there was nothing at hand. Rank rose up on his long legs, arms crossed, and from that ironic height watched us scurrying and babbling with quiet detachment, though he seemed ready enough to flee if things got too bad. Suddenly the office door flew open, not with a bang but with a definite air of announcement.

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page Nineteen

 

Rank sat glowering while I fiddled with the tinder. Finally, to fill in the lull and I think to take Rose down a peg or two, he spoke up.

“So, Miss Calhoun, you are a Roman Catholic?”

“I believe that is perfectly obvious,” she replied haughtily.

“Well, I hope you realize that kind of flummery won’t fly at the Bureau, despite its superficial air of hoodoo and hocus pocus. This is a governmental institution, not a religious one. If you do hope to succeed here, it would perhaps be best if you downplayed your affiliation.”

She colored.  

“If you expect me to deny my faith just to get a job, you are sadly mistaken. I think this place could very well use a dose of religion, and if what I’m told about it is true …”

I was able just then to straighten up and sing out cheerfully “There! I reckon that’s gotten her going!” before the conversation could get any more heated. I closed the stove door on the licking flames with a clang.  

“Thank goodness!” Rose hurried over and held her hands out to the stove and I followed her example, standing elbow to elbow with her. Rank stayed where he was sitting, looking at us stubbornly.

“Come on over!” I gestured cheerfully.

The older boy harrumphed.

“I’m fine where I am.”

Personal Matters

 

Sorry I haven’t posted for a few days, but it’s been a busy and somewhat wearying time, and I have had no new arrivals to arouse my blogging instincts.

On Thursday the 14^th, it was my niece’s 27^th birthday, and I was busy first making cupcakes, and then preparing all the elements to make tacos. In the afternoon we had a family party that lasted from 5:30 – 11 PM, with feasting, swimming (I actually got – oh, so carefully - into the pool), and then playing two games of Catch Phrase, where, for a change, the boys team won for once!

On Friday I finished counting my books (using blog entries rather than a physical count) and came up with a grand total of 2,216 volumes, with a possible variance of -20 or +20, either way (it’s hard for me to keep track of numbers accurately). If I recall correctly, the count was 3,000+ when I moved from Loop Drive. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a thing.

Temperatures had been around 105, but with a sudden sharp swift shower on Thursday (which had looked fair to cancel the swimming that day but passed quickly enough) things have been a little less life-drainingly hot (but still close to 100 in the late afternoon).

Although my re-writes of “Bob’s Book” have been crawling along, I hope to be done with Chapter Two by my own birthday later this month. I’m getting close to the chapter’s end, but maybe putting this time limit to it will help me buckle down and complete it. And that’s about all I have to say right now. 

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page 18

 

A Tinderbox

“Holy Mother of God!” Rose exclaimed, hugging her shoulders. “Then could one of you gentleman please get it going before we turn to ice?”

“Look, the note says he’ll be here in twenty minutes …” Rank began irritably.

“It’s already been more than twenty minutes,” I butted in.

“Surely the Secretary will thank us for warming the room,” Rose declared.

“They do seem kind of busy around here,” I began doubtfully. Then I brightened up. “It will show our initiative!”

Rank looked stern.

“It will show presumption.” There was an edge of worry in his voice. “Let it be.”

I wavered.

“Do you really think we shouldn’t?”

“Oh, for the love of Saint Michael!” the girl exclaimed. “Bob, don’t listen to him. I’m about to freeze! Do you really think it will matter much, one way or the other?”

I looked at Rank. He withdrew from the argument with disdain.

“Do what you like.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

I nodded my head. I took out my tinderbox, set it on top of the stove, and began the complicated process of trying to make a spark. In the bright morning light, there were no sources of flame already burning, neither lamp or candle, and I was not about to go poking my nose up and down the halls in search of fire and possibly miss the return of Mr. Williams.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #42: 50 Happy Years

 

The comic book adaptation of Mary Poppins takes 55 of the 128 pages of this edition and, in my opinion, did it right by not splitting it up between two issues, but only inside this one issue. This digest came out a mere nine years after the movie (August 1964 to August 1973) and only the next month from now the digest will be 49 years old itself. As an adaptation, especially of a musical, it is superior to most, neither skimping on the script or summarizing actions. The songs, while not including every lyric, are given sufficient length to indicate their importance to the plot. One can tell, whenever it was first produced before this reprint, that it was treated as one of Disney’s crown jewels and greatest successes.    

In the other 78 pages, Clarabelle Cow helps Clara Cluck with her weight problems; Jiminy Cricket and Chip and Dale stymie the Beagle Boys; Daisy tries to cheer up Gramma Duck by bringing the lucky Gladstone to her farm; Donald and the Nephews go hunting dinosaur bones; and Mickey attempts to make a picnic educational for Morty and Ferdie. Also, The Great Cowboy Race, Animals of North America, and The Great Camel Experiment. It’s just great!

I squeeze ever closer to my goal of having the whole run.

Adventure Time: Distant Lands - New DVD

 

Adventure Time: Distant Lands is an American animated limited series based on the animated television series Adventure Time, which was created by Pendleton Ward . Distant Lands, which comprises four hour-long streaming television specials that were produced by Cartoon Network Studios and Frederator Studios; and were released on HBO Max from June 2020 to September 2021. The DVD was released in March 2022. – Wikipedia (edited)

After four years, it was interesting to see the old gang again and see what they had been up to. The "Distant Lands" go from the depths of space to the past of some main characters to the fifty-levelled dead worlds of the afterlife in Ooo. Much is developed that had only been hinted at in the television show. Whether a second season of "Distant Lands" will be produced is a little up in the air, but seems promising.  

Alternate Archives?

While I was researching David Wenzel and Kingdom of the Dwarfs I ran across these Ace paperbacks, Song of the Dwarves (1988), followed by Revenge of the Valkyrie (1989). They were written by Thorarinn Gunnarsson, the pseudonym of a practicing science fiction writer whose real name has still not been revealed. They are basically a retelling of the Wagnerian Ring-Cycle. I’m sure if I had seen them at the time, I would probably have bought them, especially based on that first cover. But possibly not, if I had perceived them as a Ring Re-Cycle. Anyway, it’s an intriguing possibility and one that I am still a little tempted to investigate. They’re not very expensive on Amazon. But perhaps it is just as well that they remain a what-if. After all, I have images of the covers, which are most likely the best parts of the books.

"Bob's Book": Chapter Two, Page Seventeen

 

I suppressed a smile and decided to change the subject to get everyone back into an agreeing mood.

“My, it isn’t half-cold in here, isn’t it?” I said brightly, hugging my shoulders dramatically. Surely, no one would argue about that.

Rose started, as if suddenly realizing it herself, and drew her cape even closer around about her.

“Is that stove even lit?” she shivered.

“I heard that the temperature is due to drop all day,” Rank said stoically.

The idea of the cold seemed to be seizing the slight girl even more.

“Do you think one of you gentleman could check the fire?”

“Now, I don’t reckon it’s our place to go messing with the arrangements around here …” Rank began.

But I was already bouncing up. I went over, opened the stove door, then turned to report.

“No fire, but it’s all laid for one.”

Middle Earth: The World of Tolkien Illustrated (Art by David Wenzel, with text by Lin Carter) 1977

Wow. 1977. The very same year of my own Tolkien flowering (the seed had already been planted in 1973). I wonder if I may even have seen it advertised in the same places I saw The Land of Froud (also 1977), but put it from my mind because we were not a mail-ordering family just yet (certainly not to risk the princely sum of $6.95 plus shipping and handling), or because it didn’t look like it could match the Hildebrandt calendar that year, or even because I was not then so confirmed a fanatic.

To put some things in perspective, it came out forty years after The Hobbit’s first printing (in comparison, it has now been approximately 45 years since this art album was released), four years after Tolkien’s death, and twelve years before David Wenzel went on to publish (along with Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming) his graphic novel adaptation. The text by Lin Carter consists of a preface talking about Tolkien’s literary importance and then a paragraph explaining the action in each picture.  At that time, David Wenzel had been mainly a comic book artist (penciller) for such Marvel productions as The Savage Sword of Conan and The Avengers; later he illustrated the 1980 book Kingdom of the Dwarfs by Robb Walsh (see elsewhere in this blog), for which his Middle-earth work had well-prepared him.  

Although the term Middle-earth looms large in the title and might lead one to expect a broader range of subjects, including scenes from The Lord of the Rings, the drawings are confined to the story of The Hobbit, illustrating the tale more or less in order. Due to the size of several double-page pictures and printing constraints, that order is not always maintained. The pictures tend to alternate evenly between black-and-white and colored, until near the very end. But such things need only concern the very obsessively compulsive.

Wenzel’s art is very engaging, and tends to emphasize the humorous, childlike nature of The Hobbit rather than the ‘epic fantasy’ aspect so many want to read back into it once they have discovered The Lord of the Rings. An example of this would be his depiction of Smaug, still menacing, but on an elephantine and not dinosaur-like scale. One can easily see the comic book roots in such things as Bilbo’s stance and attitudes, and even without the publishing history it would be possible to date it smack-dab in the Seventies, I think. Wenzel’s later complete graphic novel adaptation shows how he evolved into a more natural and painterly approach without losing his personal style.

Even though I ‘discovered’ this volume only a few short years ago, I still wonder why I waited so long to get it. Of course, part of the answer was my comparative poverty and its comparative expense – both of which have been somewhat ameliorated. With Amazon’s The Rings of Power looming on the horizon, I am glad to have today finally got this reminder of a simpler time and of at least the related, alternative milieu of my own Tolkien past. 

Strange Bedfellows: Lovecraft and Chesterton

 

Yesterday (July 5) I got two books that arrived together in the post-holiday mail dump. As I unwrapped “The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Fiction” by H. P. Lovecraft (Annotated by S. T. Joshi, Second Edition 2012) and The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton Volume IV: Family, Society, Politics (Ignatius Press, 1987), I couldn’t help but ponder the fact that the two men lived much at the same time but held such diametrically opposed views. Lovecraft held that go far enough and not only our local human morality becomes meaningless but even the rules of time and space change. Chesterton believed “reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things … people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason. Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. … Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please … But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, `Thou shalt not steal.'" I wonder what a debate between them, could they be drawn together, would have been like.

"H. P. Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature," first published in 1927, is widely recognized as the finest historical survey of horror literature ever written. The product of both a keen critical analyst and a working practitioner in the field, the essay affords unique insights into the nature, development, and history of the weird tale. Beginning with instances of weirdness in ancient literature, Lovecraft proceeds to discuss horror writing in the Renaissance, the first Gothic novels of the late 18th century, the revolutionary importance of Edgar Allan Poe, the work of such leading figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, and William Hope Hodgson, and the four "modern masters"-Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James. In this annotated edition of Lovecraft's seminal work, acclaimed Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi has supplied detailed commentary on many points. In addition, Joshi has supplied a comprehensive bibliography of all the authors and works discussed in the essay, with references to modern editions and critical studies. For this new edition, Joshi has exhaustively revised and updated the bibliography and also revamped the notes to bring the book in line with the most up-to-date scholarship on Lovecraft and weird fiction. The entire volume has also been redesigned for ease of reading and reference. This latest edition will be invaluable both to devotees of Lovecraft and to enthusiasts of the weird tale." – Amazon.

“The first of two volumes devoted to Chesterton's political, sociological, and economical writings. Gilbert K. Chesterton staunchly opposed any assaults by the trendsetters on the common man.” – Ignatius Press summary. That is a very brief description. It includes five of his works: What’s Wrong with the World, The Superstition of Divorce, Eugenics and Other Evils, Divorce Versus Democracy, and Social Reform Versus Birth Control. One can easily observe that his subjects are all-too relevant at this very time. Whether one can agree with all his opinions – which are religious, but with a firm philosophical basis – is a matter of discussion.

Goodbye Christopher Robin (Where the Bears of Society Growl)

 

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) is a “British biographical drama film about the lives of Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne and his family, especially his son Christopher Robin.” (- Wikipedia). It was followed closely by the Disney film Christopher Robin (2018), dealing with the later life of the fictional Christopher Robin; the two are sometimes confused.

How I got my copy of the DVD is rather unusual. I had posted a Facebook memory, showing a list from four years ago of the items on my Amazon Wish List that I most wanted at the time. I noted that I had them all now except for Goodbye Christopher Robin. John’s mother-in-law answered that she had an unopened copy that she wasn’t going to watch, and that she would send it with John the next time he came over. Within a week I had my copy.

I must admit that I had tried to watch versions of the film on YouTube before, but had found them plagued with skips, distortions, and blank spots, all the usual alterations engineered to make their posting ‘legal’ by ‘publishers’. I found them unacceptable after the first ten minutes. When I put the DVD on, I found that it too suffered a bit from performance problems, although how much of that was inherent to the disc and how much to my player I can’t tell. But I did finally manage a complete viewing.

After author A. A. Milne returns from World War One, he finds it hard to produce the kind of light-hearted whimsy that was his expected métier before. But interaction with his young son Christopher Robin (called within the family ‘Billy Moon’; which he considers his ‘real’ and private name) and his toy animals helps him to relax and regain some ease with his life, and poems and stories begin to flow from his pen.

Things begin to go awry when Milne’s wife Daphne starts allowing the promotion of their son as a celebrity, ironically as the ‘real’ Christopher Robin, which ‘Billy’ sees as essentially a part to be played, and which begins to erode his genuine childhood. Daphne wants to secure the fame and security of her family but cannot see the toll it is having on the well-being of her son. When the boy’s beloved nanny weighs in with some pointed home truths, she is fired, leading to his deepening distress. Remorsefully, Milne vows never to write of Billy and his bear again.

The boy is sent to school where he suffers for being perceived as famous and privileged and for having been held up as the sentimental pattern of childhood to a whole generation. Eventually (much to the dismay of his parents, and with some bitterness, hoping to prove his individuality, worth, and maturity) he goes and fights in World War Two. He returns with a better understanding of his father, his achievements, and the place they both must now perforce occupy in the world and history, and that it is a place not without genuine merit for the human heart.

The movie now goes on the shelf with my other ‘literary biography’ DVDs, along with those of Lewis Carroll, J. M. Barrie, P. L. Travers, Robert E. Howard, S. T. Coleridge, and even (on a more speculative spectrum) Mary Shelley and William Shakespeare. As I understand it, there has been another such film in the works for a while, about Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows.  I wonder when (or if) it will arrive? All I can say is that if it does, I’ll want to watch it.    

Earwig and the Witch

 

Earwig and the Witch (2020) is a Studio Ghibli/NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) co-production, and as such was first shown on Japanese television before being released in theatres. It was based on Diana Wynne Jones’ last published book; Ghibli had previously had great success adapting her novel Howl’s Moving Castle. It is also the studio’s first CGI animated feature and was directed by Goro Miyazaki, Hiyao Miyazaki’s son; Goro also directed Ghibli’s Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill.

Poor Earwig. Released at the height of Covid-19, shown on TV first before a theatrical release, and making less than a million dollars in the total world-wide box office, it was also the first Ghibli film since Whispers of the Heart that was not tied to Disney for its distribution. Critics almost universally decried it as looking plastic and inexpressive compared to the painterly 2D animation of ‘classic’ Ghibli productions.  And the consensus was that Goro Miyazaki was no patch on his old man. I believe you could look up ‘anxiety of influence’ and find his picture there. He can’t do anything like Hiyao without seeming like a copycat or anything different without seeming to betray the nostalgic Ghibli aesthetic. In consequence of such reviews, I went in with no high expectations but with the impulse to be a completist.

I was pleasantly surprised. Its quality was equal if not superior in places to the best CGI animations. The only technical point that I found distracting was that the mouths of characters did not always track with what they were saying, but that was possibly the re-dubbing from Japanese into English. Other peculiarities of character design might seem odd or unrealistic, but these are simply conventions of the animation art form rendered into an unfamiliar format. In the words of the old song, “It's a waste of time to worry over things that they have not; be thankful for/
the things they've got.” 

In Diana Wynne Jones’ original book, Earwig is an orphan of unknown parentage, a strong-willed child whose crafty manipulation of those around her makes her the secret boss of all she surveys. When she is adopted against her wishes by the witch Bella Yaga and a disguised demon called the Mandrake to be essentially their new slave, her talent for adapting to her surroundings and learning magic soon puts her in charge in her new home as well. In the new overlaid backstory for the movie, Bella Yaga, the Mandrake, and Earwig’s mother had all been members of a magical rock band which had broken up most acrimoniously; it is Earwig’s eventual destiny to try to heal that rift.

If there is a weakness to the film, it is an inadequate explication (even if it only sufficiently implied) of the mechanics of the connections. Did Bella Yaga know who Earwig was before they adopted her, or was it just a chance? Why did Earwig’s mother think it necessary to abandon her in an orphanage in the first place? And so on, and so forth.

One can see, if one wishes, common tropes shared with Harry Potter or Coraline, and think that they are ‘copied’ therefrom, even though these motifs are almost as old (or older) than literature itself. Earwig must be judged on how well and how interestingly they are used and blended.

The film credits roll with still drawings of the aftermath of the story. Here we can get a glimpse of what Earwig might have looked like if it were more traditionally animated. Would it have been better, or better received, if it had been done so, I cannot say. I can only say that, if it is not a masterpiece or an ‘instant classic’, it is a hugely engaging entertainment, and one I am glad to have taken a chance on.