Lessons Learned from a Children’s Book

 

 

Recently, I finally read The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Graeme. It had been on my TBR pile for years.

I only learned about the book as an adult, even though the copyright date on my copy of it was from when I was 11.

To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it.

It’s a perfectly good story, and I really wanted to like it, so I took a look at why I didn’t like it.

First of all, I am an introvert. I also have ADD (or whatever they’ve renamed it), so this plays a major role in my encounter with the book.

First, the introvert part.

The story begins with Mole doing his spring cleaning. Yes, this is tedious going, and he gets fed up. It’s a lovely day, after all, and he’s stuck in the house.

He dashes out and finds himself in the sunlight of a meadow, where a rabbit presses him for money to pass through. Mole is having none of that, and races past. He’s in a hurry to enjoy the day.

 He eventually comes to the river, which he’s never seen before. There, he meets Ratty, a river rat, who immediately takes to him and rows his boat over to collect him.

So far, so good. Ratty introduces him to the riverside, invites him into his boat and takes him on a little cruise along the river until he reaches the other bank. They get out and Ratty produces a picnic basket and shares his food with Mole. It’s all very nice.

Ratty is knowledgeable about the river banks and even the dark wood. They’re having a lovely time when suddenly an otter comes out from under the water and joins them. Now to most, this would seem lovely. The more the merrier. He is a friend of Ratty, and Ratty introduces Mole as his new friend. I don’t know how Mole felt about it. Moles tend to be solitary creatures, like introverts, and I was beginning to feel a little crowded around the tablecloth with two relatively unknown, if friendly, creatures.

 Badger makes a brief appearance, but he is very much the introvert, and, seeing the three of them, retreats to the woods rather than join them.

Perhaps Mole was fine with it.  He continues his meal, listening to what Ratty and Otter have to say when they see Toad in his boat. They tell Mole of various messes Toad had got into when suddenly Otter disappears after a mayfly.

They decide to pack up the lunch things, and Mole volunteers to do it, in thanks for Ratty providing lunch. Once it’s all packed, they get back into the boat and row towards Ratty’s home. A very enjoyable day, and an enjoyable book so far.

Then Mole decides he wants to row, which he doesn’t know how to do. Despite Ratty’s objections, Mole grabs the oars and his efforts are rewarded with them both being pitched out of the boat.

The ADD part of me can understand this. I’ve often done things without thinking with disastrous results. At that point, I would’ve been embarrassed beyond belief. The only thing I would have wanted to do, after apologizing profusely, would be to scurry back to my home, believing my new friend would prefer to see the back of me after that.

But Mole stays. Yes, they are animals, and behave as animals, shaking themselves off, despite having the trappings of humans, and going on as if nothing had happened. As the book points out, animal etiquette demands that no comment be made if a friend suddenly leaves or makes a mistake.

Mole is embarrassed by his own bad behavior, but Ratty helps get Mole out of the water, helps him to dry off and rescues the lunch basket that has fallen into the water while Mole tries to get dry.

I would need distance to recover from the embarrassment. I can definitely imagine someone actually dying of embarrassment.

 Mole does apologize, but Ratty is cheerful and thinks nothing of what’s happened. They go along to Ratty’s house as planned. Ratty invites him to sleep over, teaches him how to row and proves himself the perfect host.

This is where I became more and more uncomfortable reading the book. To my mind, Mole needed to go home, reset, and have a few days to get over the embarrassment of his behavior. I would have. But he didn’t. He stayed. Apparently, Ratty’s cheerful attitude was enough to get him past his mistake.

In fact Mole actually stays most of the summer with Ratty while Ratty introduces him to many other experiences and animals, and teaches him the proper behavior of animal society.

The longer Mole stayed, the less I wanted to read the story. Perhaps if I’d read it as a child it would have affected me differently. But I suspect I would have felt the same, if less intensely.

Why do I believe this?

When I was 10 I was invited to a Halloween party by one of my classmates. I think it was also a birthday party, so I was aware that I would probably never be invited to a party there again. My mother didn’t allow me to have birthday parties with friends. The etiquette was, if someone invited you to their birthday party, you were expected to invite them to yours. I was probably the only child in the universe who wasn’t allowed to have friend birthday parties, so however much anyone may have liked me, I was never invited to a second party by anyone. It didn’t matter that they would’ve been invited, and I wasn’t excluding them. There was simply no party to invite them to.

The reason I couldn’t have parties was my eldest brother. When he was eight, he had a friend birthday party. I was a year old at the time. His friends were apparently feral. They climbed all over furniture they shouldn’t have been on and generally acted like bulls in the proverbial china shop. After that, my mother declared there would never be another friend birthday party in our house. Thanks bro.

Back to the party when I was 10. It was near Halloween, so we all came in costumes. I was a vampire. I had a cape. At one point, one of my friends and I crossed hands and she started spinning around in a circle, which meant I went spinning as well. Capes being what they are, mine flew out behind me and knocked something off a table. I don’t recall whether or not it was a breakable, but we were both reprimanded by the birthday child’s mother.

I, of course, was embarrassed to the bone. I knew I shouldn’t have done that. I had fallen off the “on your best behavior” shelf, behaving no better than a street urchin. What would my mother say? (Would she find out? Not from my lips.)

I think everyone else shrugged it off. It was a moment. But for me, it was the rest of the evening, and that was ruined. I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the party. I took off my cape and went through the motions of attending a party, eating cake and ice cream, drinking some god-awful fake fruit punch and waiting for the party to be over.

The party person opened wonderful gifts, and I mimed the same oohs and aahs as everyone else, smiled at the shiny new items and looked as social as everyone else (I think). But none of it reached beyond the wall my lapse of judgement had erected in front of me. I was mortified and only wanted to get out of the situation. Perhaps by Monday, when we returned to school, I could feel human again around my peers.

So, I think even at 10, I would’ve taken Mole’s situation with the same discomfort I did as a senior citizen. (Am I really?)

Then the story got more uncomfortable: they met Toad of Toad Hall.

Toad was the sort of creature who would’ve spun around in tight quarters wearing a cape, and knocked down Greek urns and ancient Chinese vases. But he would’ve blamed the urns and vases for losing their balance. I didn’t like Toad.

On top of that, Toad was stupid, in my estimation. He had everything – almost everything. He had friends, a richly appointed mansion, and all the trappings of wealth one could desire. But he had no common sense. He did not learn from his experiences.

Toad blithely made a mess of things and cried crocodile – or in his case, Toad – tears, begging for forgiveness – and expecting it to be handed out simply because he asked – while expecting his friends to bail him out of his situation.

Toad eventually ends up in jail, and his friends become exasperated with him. But he does finally have a moment of remorse, and determines to turn over a new leaf.

Meanwhile, the seamier creatures of the forest take over Toad Hall in Toad’s absence, and make a mess of things. Fortunately, Toad’s friends, despite their exasperation with Toad himself – they are a forgiving lot – come to his aid and help him rid his home of these squatters.

Yet, the moment he gets the slightest temptation, Toad forgets his new leaf, and resumes his old ways.

Yes, this is the human condition, and all of us forget our good intentions at times. But Toad doesn’t even seem to try, relying yet again on his friends to bail him out as needed. He’s the sort that says sorry, but actually isn’t. To him, tomorrow is another day, and we won’t speak of anything that’s past.

It may simply be that we detest seeing our own faults in others, and that’s why I can’t like him. He shows up my ADD side. But I don’t think I’ve ever abused anyone’s friendship the way he repeatedly does. And when I make a mistake, I am truly humiliated by it. I do learn from my mistakes. I don’t make the same one again. I may make a different one, but I don’t repeat the old ones. And I try to make up my transgressions to others. Whether or not the accept it, is on them.

But I simply cannot like someone as unrepentantly entitled as Toad. He ruined The Wind in the Willows for me.