A few months ago I discovered The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame in my bookshelf. Realizing I never actually read this children’s classic in all the years I apparently owned it, I decided to finally do so in my spare time. Now, I normally review more contemporary books, and The Wind in the Willows was actually published in 1908. I was also planning to review The Hunger Games next, but upon completing this book, I feel that it deserves a review from me so my tackle of that other happy tale of wonderfulness will just have to wait.
Disney fanatics might be more familiar with the 1949 cartoon The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad or even the Disneyland ride based on that. Yes, the Mr. Toad-centered portion of the show is based—however loosely that may be—on The Wind in the Willows. (Now isn’t that interesting, a ride based on a cartoon based on a book?) There are also several film adaptations and even a play based on this story.
The novel itself has been quite successful, even when first published, surprising me because most classic authors I’ve researched ended up broke and never became famous until after they were dead. (Hemingway actually killed himself in Idaho, but this review is about Grahame’s work, not Hemingway’s. I apologize for my rabbit trail.)
In my opinion, this book was okay. It’s not bad by any means, definitely not on the level of terribleness that is Twilight and Hemingway’s works—it’s just okay. As a classic, I think it’s highly overrated. Why would I say such a thing, you ask? Well, for starters, this is the first book I've had to look up in Wikipedia to find out what it was about AFTER I read the darn thing. Again, it’s not nearly as terrible as Hemingway; at least it has a plot, but it was a bit confusing.
The summary on the back of my book was misleading to say the least. According to it, the main character is Mole, who makes new friends in Ratty, Badger, and Toad. Then the evil weasels take Toad’s home and the four friends have to fight them to get it back. This gave me the impression of a battle between good and evil, adventure, and the loyalty between friends. Unfortunately, this so-called plot doesn't really happen until the last two chapters, thus smashing my dreams of the good and evil fight, minimizing adventure, and focusing mainly on friendship. Basically, there was a whole lot of playing around and building up to the conflict, but very little conflict.
The story begins one spring as Mole, a shy homebody, ventures out from his underground home and meets the Water Rat, more fondly known as Ratty, by the river. The two become instant friends and spend a great deal of time in Ratty’s boat and eating together. Soon after this meeting, Ratty introduces Mole to the rich and conceited—though quite friendly—Toad. Not too long ago, Toad was just as obsessed with boating as Ratty, if not more so, but now he’s moved on to a new fad: horse-drawn carts. The three of them go on a road trip together, only to nearly get hit by a motor car. Sure enough, as soon as Toad sees the car, he loses all excitement for his cart and wants one of those “machines” instead. I suppose if you’re as rich as Toad, you can afford to jump from expensive fad to expensive fad, but all the same, he is quite the ridiculous and shallow character.
A great deal of time goes by. It is now winter, and Mole is curious about Ratty’s other best friend, Badger. They venture into the Wild Wood, and a few clumsy pages later, they find his home. Shivering, tired, and hungry, they take up shelter with him for the night. As for Badger, he is older than the other characters, having been friends with Toad’s father first, and logically possesses the voice of reason in this group. He has a cynicism toward society, though he is kind and enjoys the occasional company; he just seems to thrive when he has his alone time. (He’s the poster boy for introverts!)
For about a page and a half of this visit, the three discuss the level of ridiculousness Toad has reached with his cars. Apparently he is a horrific driver, crashing every one he owns, earning himself the new record in fines and three trips to the hospital. They decide that a drastic intervention is in order but not until next spring, because during the winter most animals are just too tired (or lazy) to perform such strenuous activities as dealing with stupid friends. (Alright, guys, let’s just hope he hasn’t died or gone to jail before then...)
A whole lot of wandering around and one homesick Mole later, spring comes along and the three head over to Toad Hall to very forcefully implement their intervention strategy on a hysterical Toad, who thankfully hasn’t died or gone to jail while his friends were eating and sleeping. This, of course, changes rapidly when Toad escapes his friends and steals a car—yes, he STEALS a car. Then the inevitable occurs and he’s arrested and put in jail.
What’s interesting about this novel is that not only are we in a world where humans don’t think twice about talking, clothes-wearing animals, they hold the animals to social responsibilities as well. Therefore, for stealing a car and evading the police, Toad is sentenced to twenty years in a human prison.
Of course, Toad escapes, and ends up committing a great deal of tom foolery, including dressing as a washerwoman, stealing a woman’s horse, selling it, and then stealing the exact same car again. He finally runs into Ratty and boasts of these actions, only to have Ratty break the bad news to him: the evil Weasels have overrun Toad Hall.
Interrupting Toad’s adventures, Mole and Ratty take part in what the Nostalgia Chick from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com might refer to as "Big-Lipped Alligator Moments." Both of these moments involve the two doing what they do best—hanging out and wandering around. The entire time, they seem to have forgotten about how Toad gave them the slip, committed crimes, and ended up in prison. In fact, it’s almost as though they forgot he existed. Both events were never mentioned again, and both left me asking the simple question, “Why?”
Once Toad is reunited with Ratty, we learn that his friends really didn’t forget about him, for Badger and Mole have been beaten rather brutally by the Weasels in trying to defend Toad Hall, and the friends now plan to help Toad get his home back.
Basically, Toad finally realizes what great friends he has and what a jerk he’s been, so he tones down the ego…at least for the time being. I’m all for character development and believe that people change, but with Toad there are a couple of constants: He’s conceited and he’s wishy-washy, saying and doing whatever he thinks is most convenient for him at the time. I predict that after a while, once he’s gotten nice and comfortable in his home again, he will return to his old ways and cause stress to his friends once more. (When they’re not getting distracted by their Big-Lipped Alligator Moments, that is!)
The main theme, as I mentioned before, is friendship. There are some good friends in this story—well, at least okay friends. They certainly got easily distracted from their goal of helping Toad, and their idea of helping him involved trying to talk some sense into him, and when that didn’t work they shut him up in his room and wouldn’t let him out until he “admitted his folly.” That, children, is called holding someone against their will, and it isn’t legal, but it was “for his own good” so I guess it was okay. When he breaks out of jail and meets up with them again, the issue isn’t so much that he broke out of jail but that he’s so boastful and ridiculous about it and now it’s time to get his house back. (Um…what about the fact that he’s supposed to be in prison, guys? Hello? Escaped convict?) Well, easily distracted aside, the friends come through at the end, zealously defending his reputation and property. Perhaps not very good law-abiding citizens, but they’re pretty decent friends.
There are the good friends and then there’s a very obvious bad friend. Toad’s the character that gets the most attention from the audience, whether in this book or in films. You’ll notice the Disney version specifically has his name in the title, not any of the other characters’. This is because, no matter what era you live in, bad friends always receive far more attention than they deserve. Toad simply demands this attention because his antics involve so much hilarity. They’re terrible. They’re annoying. But they caused many laugh-out-loud moments on my part.
Toad is the most recognizable character because we all know him in real life. Everybody either has or observes a bad friend. Everybody knows such a person, whether we easily identify them as a “bad friend” or not. This kind of person is usually on top of the latest fads and holds an exceptional social presence, loving to plan events and invite people to them. Whether we realize it or not, they enjoy blowing their own horn and showing off their stuff at these events. (The obviousness of such a trait tends to vary depending on the bad friend.) This kind of person may also be the type that lives entirely in the moment and only thinks of himself or herself rather than the consequences, and if it comes down to it, they will leave you in the dust, feeling like a fool, in favor of their own advantage. If you combine all of these traits and exaggerate them a little, you have Toad. Don’t lie to yourself; you know you have a victim of Mr. Toad syndrome pictured in your head and maybe you’re even laughing a little on the inside. It’s sad, but in our world full of flawed humans, it’s just the way it is.
Whether the bad friend is actually our friend, we simply go to their events for our amusement, or we look on from our corner of outcasts, we know who they are, and that makes Toad a great satire. All the more entertaining is watching his good friends try to get his stupid little head to see reason—when we’re not yawning over their wanderings and Mole’s somewhat lovable naivety, anyway.
And now we come to it. The one aspect I would rather avoid, but it’s such an elephant in the room that I can’t—Grahame actually based Toad’s character on his young son. This was very loosely, Toad’s stubbornness really being the only thing based on the child, but still. Basing such a character on your child, even that loosely, is pretty, well, mean of you, Grahame! Especially considering the nature of the boy’s demise years later, it’s not very funny at all. I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just have to research that one yourself.
This book has a great theme about loyalty and an amusing enough satire about trying to help a bad friend, but when it comes to the story, I’m afraid there was far too much “story fat” and not enough story. I recommend it because it’s a classic (shame on me for not reading it sooner) but as far as classics go, it’s only okay. Again, it’s highly overrated.
Note: Extra research courtesy of Wikipedia.org. This is a great site to go to if you want basic information out of curiosity, but don’t try to use it in an uber-important research paper or dissertation or anything like that. Your grade will suffer for it.
Also, “Big-Lipped Alligator Moment” may or may not belong to Lindsay Ellis or someone else from thatguywiththeglasses.com. If it does, please don’t sue me! This phrase is genius and I’m giving you guys credit for it!
