Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the greatest works of literature ever written. Some say that it overshadowed the rest of A. A. Milne’s work, but if this is what he’s most remembered for, then there’s no problem as far as I can see. I like it, I really do.

This body of work is a collection of short stories about the lives and happenings of a group of children’s toy animals in a forest. There’s Winnie-the-Pooh himself, a stuffed bear with a love of honey that borders on the addictive, Christopher Robin his owner/master/demi-god, Piglet who is only a Very Small Animal, Rabbit who likes to order everyone around, Owl who sits and pontificates, Kanga who fusses over Roo, and Roo who only exists to worry Kanga. Later on there’s Tigger, who Bounces. And there’s Eeyore. We’ll come to him later. Of course, what we call Winnie-the-Pooh is actually two short books, published one after the other, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, but they’re both so short that they can be safely compiled into one volume that can be read in the space of a weekend. The version I’ve got here is titled The World of Pooh. Call it what you will, you must find it and read it, if you haven’t done so already. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s a children’s book – children are more intelligent than people suspect, and it looks to me that A. A. Milne seemed to know this.

Pooh himself is often cited as a Bear of Very Little Brain, who spends most of his finite mental abilities making up little hums and rhymes, or else trying to coax honey out of his friends on the pretext of visiting them. It is this straightforward approach to life however that occasionally allows him to solve the day-to-day problems that crop up in the forest, such as when he turns an empty honey-pot into a crude floatation device  so that he could escape a flood, or to just follow his instincts when he ends up lost in the mist. His kindly, easy-going nature has even gone as far as to be used as an illustration for the principles of Taoism, as seen in the popular little book The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff – I can in fact recommend this book too, as a supplement to Winnie-the-Pooh. I can’t claim to know much of Taoism outside of what appears in either book, but by illustrating its basic tenets with references from Winnie-the-Pooh, this Hoff chap makes it sound rather enlightened. At the end of the day, if everyone were a little more like Pooh and less like Rabbit, or Eeyore, then the world would be a better place. This is why Winnie-the-Pooh has the scent of brilliance.

While I like the idea of comparing Pooh to a western Taoist philosopher, I think there’s something more to it than that. The beauty and comedy of this book comes down solely to its writing, of the confusion that takes place between the characters in their dialogue. So much of it comes directly from their child-like misunderstanding of what the other character is saying, and is then followed up by the reveal that the first character doesn’t really know either, and is caught out. Take this instance in the first chapter:

‘Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin.

“It means he had the name over the door in gold letters and lived under it.”’*

Or this:

‘And the door opened and Owl looked out.

“Hallo, Pooh,” he said. “How’s things?”

“Terrible and sad,” said Pooh, “because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, has lost his tail. And he’s Moping about it. So could you very kindly tell me how to find it for him?”

“Well,” said Owl, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.”

“What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said Pooh. “For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.”

“It means the Thing to Do.”

“As long as it means that, I don’t mind,” said Pooh humbly.’**

In fact, Owl is usually at the root of this sort of comedy, for he tends to use overly complicated means to express himself, which of course only means that the others can barely understand him. This is best illustrated during the episode when it rained lots:

‘It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say “How do you do?” to his friend Christopher Robin.

“I say, Owl,” said Christopher Robin, “isn’t this fun? I’m on an island!”

“The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately,” said Owl.

“The what?”

“It has been raining,” explained Owl.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin. “It has.”

“The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height.”

“The who?”

“There’s a lot of water about,” explained Owl.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin, “there is.”

“However, the prospects are rapidly becoming more favourable. At any moment –“

“Have you seen Pooh?”***

So yes. The thing is, that this sort of comedy ought to appeal to children especially, because adult-speak must seem terribly needlessly complicated to them. Why did Owl have to always try to say things in such a convoluted way, using such big words when he could convey the same meaning with fewer, simpler words? Why do I have to do the same thing in these book reviews? Could it be that I’m just trying to make myself feel more intelligent? In this way it could almost be seen as a satire of language, showing just how silly advanced English seems when it’s comprehended by children. It is not that they can’t understand the ideas being presented, just that the long words offer an unnecessary barrier. Being someone with a vocabulary that is probably a little too large, I found this book endearingly hilarious for these very reasons.

Now then... the issue of Eeyore. This misery-guts of a donkey has, thanks largely to the Disney adaptations of the character, gained something of a cult-following as somebody who’s soppy yet endearing.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE! EEYORE IS AN ABSOLUTE ASS!

He’s a miserable stick-in-the-mud, rude, manipulative and unpleasant, and he delights in complaining bitterly, whilst in the next breath by claiming to rise above it as a matter of course, because he’s too good to complain. ‘Mustn’t grumble’ is the keyword here. The thing is that he clearly enjoys being miserable as it gives him something to complain about, and makes himself feel better by acting superior to everybody else, liberally insulting them for not giving him his due attention and respect. In many ways Eeyore is the best character of the lot just because he’s such a sharp contrast to everybody else, so self-absorbed, so unpleasant, and how he tries to drag everybody else down with his bitterness. I don’t know how the cult-of-Eeyore could justify their love of him, but in the book he is essentially the opposite of Pooh, which in effect makes him the antagonist of the series. Only his reverence of Christopher Robin could possibly redeem him, and the way that in the final chapter he behaved like a bit less of an ass than usual. Still an ass mind, but not as much of one.

So there you have it – Winnie-the-Pooh is an intelligent little introduction to the English language, one that demonstrates just how silly and entertaining it really is. The characters are lovable, except for Eeyore who’s not, and the interactions and trials of their friendship is genuinely heart-warming. Whether you see it as an illustration of Taosim, a satire of language , or just a fond little childhood retreat, Winnie-the-Pooh is an excellent read and will improve your life just by reading it.

[Disclaimer: I’m not really sure what to do with one of these, as I’ve never used one before to my knowledge, but I must apologise about the whole Eeyore issue. Yes, I do quite like Eeyore, he’s an excellent character and the whole of Pooh is enriched by his presence. I suppose my issue with him, besides everything bad I said about him before, is that I see a lot of myself in Eeyore when I read this And I Don’t Like What I’m Seeing! You know, when I was a youngster, back way over a decade ago now, one of my teachers once made the observation, in front of an entire classroom of other children, that I was the most like Eeyore. It traumatised me, this did, as Eeyore is a right ass, and to be told this did not aid in my emotional upbringing in any way. In many ways though, I more identify with Piglet nowadays, with his timidity and his endless worrying, but I’ll take this any day over the bog-dwelling gloomy donkey who Never Stops Complaining.] 

References ('cos I'm a professional, like that)

* Milne, A.A. The World of Pooh. Methuen Children’s Books: London. (1958). pp.16-17

** Milne. P.56

*** Milne. P.136

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

There are many books that have left me with a sense of achievement after I finished reading through them. Some have made me feel sad at their conclusion, for there is no more to read, and the characters and plots that I had been resolutely following exist no more at the closing of the book. Sometimes, if there is a sequel, I will happily move straight on to that in order to gain further satisfaction from the reading experience. Yet some books I reach the end of make me utter the words ‘Thank God that that’s over’. It is generally not an indication of a good book if I end like this.

Dracula was one of these last books.

I feel sad to have to conclude this progenitor of the modern Vampire as a not especially good work, because there was an awful lot about it that I liked. 

The story is about the mysterious Count Dracula, who you will certainly have heard of, even if you’ve never seen any of the hundreds of movies about him (or any other Vampire-related spawn, which to the detriment of humanity culminated in the Twilight series. Well, it’s wrong to blame Einstein for the atomic bomb...)  Count Dracula is a centuries’ old undead bloodsucking aristocrat residing in the wilds of Transylvania in eastern-Europe, who has decided to move to London. The protagonists of the novel are all people whose lives are affected by this decision, and eventually they muddle through for long enough to work out what’s going on, and work out that they need to kill Dracula. There’s Jonathon Harker, who travels to Castle Dracula at the beginning of the novel, his fiancée and later wife Mina, Mina’s friend Lucy Westenra, Dr Seward who runs a mental institute, Renfield a patient in said institute, Dr Seward’s two friends the American Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood a wealthy heir, and finally Professor Van Helsing, Seward’s Dutch mentor, who seems to be the only person who knows what’s going on with the Vampire situation. Lucy Westenra, who is disgustingly sweet, proves to be prime material for Dracula’s need for blood, and after a long-long time of being secretly drunk-dry the local Vampire, eventually dies, becomes a Vampire herself, and thus provides the stepping-stone to the rest of the story.

Unfortunately, the critical flaw with Dracula always comes back to the way in which it is told. The story is presented entirely through the assembled writings of several characters, largely in the form of diaries and journals, and to a lesser extent from letters, telegrams, and newspaper reports. A character writes about the events that occur, in diary entries just after the events have happened. In effect, the reader is invited to experience the story by reading through a record, to witness the events through the memories of the characters, and to understand their thoughts, reactions and emotions at different points along the narrative. This is a novel idea, and one that could, in theory, work quite well. Unfortunately what you end up reading for the next four-hundred pages is someone waffling on in an endlessly dreary tone, as they just tell you in the most boring way what happened. It’s boring, is what it is. Really really boring. And slow. To say the story moves along at a snail’s pace would do injustice to snails. It’s just wet, Victorian waffle, describing how shocked and horrified they feel upon having their safe little upper middle-class Christian worlds shaken by the machinations of this Count Dracula fellow.

The story-telling aside, the effort that Bram Stoker makes in order to ground the tale in reality does have some positive flip sides. Yes, the story is slow, and very little happens at any particular time, but this does provide time for a great deal of introspection for the characters. Lucy Westenra’s illness, caused by her night-time visitations from Dracula, is painfully drawn out as Dr Seward and Van Helsing try desperately to keep her alive. They perform numerous blood-transfusions to keep her tanked up against Dracula’s visits, and every time something goes awry in order to make her eventual death a certainty. It’s agonising to witness, but this is one respect in which the novel succeeds. That it takes so long for her to die only makes it all the more tragic when she eventually does so, and is an excellent display of how horrible a creature the real Count Dracula actually is.

Ahhhh.... Count Dracula. The rest of the characters may be boring and largely interchangeable, but their antagonist is one of the all-time great villains. No wonder so many cheesy knock-offs have been attempted by Hollywood and Hammer Films, as he is the Devil in the guise of a man. He is a mysterious and dreadfully powerful individual, a mighty hero from the middle ages who has existed in a state of undeath into the modern world, a man with the strength of several men, who can change his shape to any creature he desires, or even into mist, can sneak into the most secure rooms and houses without being noticed, who can control the very weather itself in order to further his aims. And while his powers are affected by the time of day, exposure to sunlight is not actually that harmful to him. A lot tougher than Buffy ever had it, I can tell you. This is what our band of everyday Victorians have to face, and all they’ve got are a few crucifixes, a regular supply of garlick, and all the money that several very wealthy people have at their disposal. Well, not everything is against them. Dracula is this malign, omnipresent villain, but that he’s always lurking in the background adds a wonderful layer to the story, and makes him a formidable adversary.

My main criticism of this book is that it starts off good, but gradually runs out of steam as it progresses. The first four chapters are undoubtedly the best, where Jonathon Harker goes to Transylvania to visit Dracula in his castle. The Count at first appears like quite a nice chap, if a little unnerving a chap, and the two of them spend a great deal of time eating dinner and talking. It gradually dawns on Harker that the Count is the only person he ever sees around the castle, and that certain things about him don’t seem quite right: that he never actually eats anything, that he has weird nocturnal life-style, that he has no reflection, that he never allows Harker to leave the castle...

Harker and Dracula continue their dinner-time conversations, while Dracula knows that Harker knows that he’s a prisoner, but the two of them pretend that everything’s normal. This is a very British sort of horror. ‘Yes, I know you’re keeping me here against my will, and I know that you know that I know, but I’m not going to panic in front of you, Dracula. That just would not do...’

This section is really quite excellent, but it could  not be kept up. We then pick up with the rest of the characters back in England, and after a bit of doddering along in which Dracula’s dramatic entry into the county is reported, the sad case of Lucy Westenra occurs. While it takes time to build up, this is another of the high points of the novel, but sadly it soon peters off again, and we are left with the rest of the book to slog through, in which the characters have a group cry at least four times before the end (while I’m certainly not against male characters showing their softer sides, especially when they have a real reason for sorrow, by the third occasion when more than one of them breaks into tears at the same time I was beginning to get a bit fed-up by it, and on the fourth occasion it’s a case of ‘Really? Again?’)

Dracula, a good story, has several interesting points, but is definitely let down by the dullness of the writing. The Count Dracula character is one of the most important literary creations of the modern world, possibly because he and his vampiric descendents have been stolen and abused so many times since then, but here at least is one of the originals. I didn’t bother to explore the sexual metaphors the character involves, because they’re quite obvious in here (mysterious foreign gentleman, preying on young ladies and taking their blood at night), which to the Victorians was probably the most horrifying thing they could conceive. No wonder it became so popular a concept. Likewise with the character himself, the metaphor has been overused and corrupted (‘I’m looking at you, Twilight’). Perhaps one of the main issues with this book is that the suffocating Victorian values of Stoker’s day have now almost entirely been cleansed from our society, and so it’s now quite alien for us to see his characters to speak and behave in the way that they do.

For my last word on the matter, Dracula is one of those books that’s good to read at least once. It’s refreshing to see where the whole vampire-mythos originally took root, if only to marvel at their long and sorry decay over the following century. Just don’t expect it to be amazing, though.