Books for Blankets

"I am sitting... looking out across the the backyard full of blue evening snow, everything is slick and crusty with ice, and it is very still. It's one of those winter evenings when the coldness of every single thing seems to slow down time... Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me..." ~The Time Traveler's Wife

The schools let out early that day in preparation for a storm that came a lot later than we anticipated. 

I looked out the window often throughout the morning and into the afternoon, in-between customers and during them, looking out into the dead world for the snow that we had been promised was coming. 

The buses canceled in waiting. 

It was only on my way home from work that tiny flakes started to fall onto the windshield of my car; only after I fell asleep in my bed was the world transformed, as it usually is. 

You cannot watch the change. It always comes suddenly, softly, while you are sleeping. It's like magic. Even if you are awake, it creeps in so silently, like someone slipping into bed late at night when their spouse is already dreaming.

 

 

I awoke in the evening inside a blue darkness. Outside my gently weeping windows the world had been dressed white.

I read in my bed for hours after, tucked into a soft blanket, my fingers curled around the large pages of my book, listening to the silence. 

I never thought this book, with its meadows and its picnics and sunny childhood days, would be a winter book. But now, reading it for the second time, I realized that it was. It is full of winter, full of festivities and New Years parties. It is full of snow banks, and cold naked nights, and stagnant winter days, and soft and still ones too. It is packed with cold pavements, and tragedies that happen on Christmas, and wedding days during snow storms. 

It is full of soft silent nights in which its characters curl up in bed with a book, or with the warm body of someone they love. 

It was the perfect book to keep you warm in bed on a night like this one.

 

 

The spell still hasn't broken. But the book was over by the time I made my way into the night to behold the winter's magic. The only disturbance in the snow was a cat's soft footprints and the showers of a tree laden white,  leaving trails of its own as it shed bits of its new coat. 

 

I crawled into bed after, with my mittens and boots drying downstairs and my book put aside on my nightstand without a slip to mark its place in time.  

 

It is strange how a narrative is remembered when it is over; not in thought-out paragraphs or ordered pages, but existing in one's head in fragments and duality, in coupled moments and disordered dialogue, misplaced moments stuck in sections of a nonsensical timeline. It is as if it has happened all at once, a stream of consequence nestled into a soft white night spent in reading, and nothing else.

 

 

Spending Time in My Printed Book

I have spent the last few months inside the first few chapters of my book.

Part One, which I wrote so long ago, in another province, in a house now far gone, in a time and a life so unlike this one, is a thing of my past. 

I have spent these last few weeks revisiting it, sifting through its words, righting its tilted paragraphs, rummaging through its pages like sheets of music that need organizing. 

First, they were untouchable, black on a white glowing page, easy to erase and alter, to mend and mistakenly correct. All I had to do was press the keys. 

Then, a few weeks ago, they became concrete. 

With the help of my family, Part One, written one summer when high school was done but my new life had not yet begun, was printed now for the second time. But with it came something new; something more hefty and more full of change; something written by a writer so unlike the one who spent more time deleting than she did writing; a writer who somehow learned to write so effortlessly, she almost believed she was doing something wrong. 

 

Thus, Part Two was printed for the first time. The book in both parts was bound by twine and many helpers, as we sliced and organized and punched holes. It had to be bound in three parts, due to its length. 

Furthermore, something both small and great happened: the book was printed with a name. For the first time since I first started writing it, this book that was mine had a title wholly apart from its former one ("my book", a unfitting title altogether, since it will not always be mine.) I always knew it would need a name in order to go out into the world. But I never thought it would come so easily.  

 

But this copy in its incompleteness, in its messiness, with its notes and scribbles and its curled edges, will always be mine. So, as I toil with it, as I get frustrated with it, as I hop across its shortcuts and try to find new ways to write about things that to me are by now old and familiar, I learn that what I love most about this printed being is to hold it, to feel how much it weighs, and remember what it was like to fill out these pages when they were digital and blank. I knew it as the printer coughed it out, and I picked up the pages, and all I could say was "I wrote all of this!"

But, not only did I write it all, I worked for it all; I fought with it all; I got fed up with it; I hurt for it; I lost sleep for it. I wrote every word.

 

Now I get to think about it; I get to fix every fragment and cut up every run on. I get to ponder each word and select some new ones. I get to cut and paste and alter. 

 

So, as I edit Part One for what I hope will be the last time in a while, I resist the urge to rush to the end, to the new stuff yet unread, wholly unedited, but full of tension, and mystery, and murder, and so much more. I resist the urge to call it good enough, and I ponder with my pencil these now printed words. I cross things out. I jot things down. I think about unfinished paragraphs when my mind can wander during long work days.

I tell myself that I do not know when I will be returning here next, to these chapters written before the beginning had yet begun. 

I do know this though: when I return, I will be a better writer than I am now; when I return, I will have written chapters I still know nothing about; I will be one step closer to the last one, what ever numeric title it may bare. I know that it is out there, somewhere on the paper white horizon. 

I know also that the next time I read these chapters I will look up from this book, this book that is mine only for a time, and the life around me will be different too. 

It is strange how thoughts like these affect me: making me both eager to get to the end, and desire to linger here a little while longer.

The Tail of Despereaux (And Why He Had to Lose It)

A Look at the Heroic Critters in Literature, Who (more often than not) Lose Their Tails

 

Ever since I wrote my post Why Mr. Fox Had to Lose His Tail a few months ago, another heroic critter has been coming in and out of mind. 

It occurred to me shortly after I shared the post here that Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn't the only fictional critter I knew of who had lost his tail. Despereaux, the heroic mouse in Kate Dicamillo's The Tale of Despereaux also loses his tail most gruesomely when Miggory Sow chops it off with a cleaver, so sparing his life by a hair, and yet, taking his tail nonetheless. 

 

Reepicheep in C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian also loses his tail in a battle against the Telmarines.

 

I thought that surely there must be a mutual string here in these stories. I might not have noticed it otherwise were it not for the trail left by a violently lost tail.

 

Throughout the weeks that followed my first touch on this topic in June, I thought from time to time about Despereaux, wondering occasionally if I could figure out what this symbolism meant, if anything.

Yet I was uncertain whether there was enough in this differential between the loss of tail. It was evident to me that these two stories (Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Tale of Despereaux) did not otherwise have much in common; one being rather grotesque, while the other, though somewhat violent at times, reads much like fairy tale. 

Then, less than a week after I started to ponder Despereaux and his poor cleaved tail, a little chipmunk began to help himself to the food in my bird feeder just outside my living room window. 

Ironically, the little bandit had lost his tail. 

I decided then that it was time to revisit The Tale of Despereuax in an attempt to unravel this mystery. This post is the result of what I have discovered in my lengthy investigation.

We learn from the mouse Reepicheep that the loss of a tail is a heavy burden to bear for any small critter; and so, naturally, Reepicheep was not forgotten in my thoughts as I considered this conundrum. 

In C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian, Reepicheep also loses his tail. Thereafter his mice followers decide to chop off their own tails, saying that it would be better to go without it than to bear the shame of wearing an honour denied to their chief.

 

Fortunatetly, the world Reepicheep lives in is one of healing and redemption, and by the power of Aslan his tail is quickly restored and thus no more tails are chopped off.  

Because of this, I will not be talking much about the wonder that is Reepicheep the mouse and his blessed tail, only say that the reaction of his people shows that the loss of a tail is not to be taken too lightly.

Indeed, I myself would  have been unsettled by such a sight as a group of mice slicing off their own tails with the sharp end of a blade. Surely, Narnia would have to be a more savage place than I remember if that is how the story had gone and we were left to look at the bloodied rumps of these pure creatures. 

 

 

 

As I mentioned in my last post regarding this subject, I find Mr. Fox's own bloodied stump of a tail unsettling, for it represents to me the severity of death in an animal's world and just how near it lives to an animal's rump. A slip down a hole may not be enough to give Death the slip. But if, like Mr. Fox, the critter is lucky, it may miss them by a tail's length. 

 

Despereaux himself is spared from the meat cleaver, and, like Mr. Fox, he must live with this reminder for the rest of his life. Death nearly got him then. But it was not luck that spared him. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a lucky creature, this we cannot deny, for every tight spot he ever gets into he evades with a combination of luck and his own personal cunning. 

Despereaux is not cunning, and indeed, he is often unlucky. 

So, what spared him then?

In the weeks that followed, Despereaux popped often into my mind trailed by this simple question. But the more I thought about these tailless creatures and the argument I had made for Mr. Fox's stump the less it seemed to apply to Despereaux. While it is true that he lives in an often harsh world, death does not dwell nearly so close in Despereaux's castle. Indeed, with an air of destiny, Despereaux evades death the moment he is born, for none of the other mice in his litter survive. He is born along with dead brothers and dead sisters, and though his father claims that he cannot possibly live, the narrator immediately assures us that he does, for this is, after all, his story. 

Thus, Despereaux survives, defying death with his birth alone. One might say it was his destiny that pulled him through. 

 

There is no destiny for Mr. Fox. Indeed, the word is not once uttered. One must remember that the events of the story itself are brought about by the consequences of Mr. Fox's own actions. They are the direct result of his animalistic instincts, to thieve, to eat, to snap chicken necks and crunch on bird bones. 

 

Despereaux, however, is never good at following his mouse instincts. Anyone assigned the task of teaching Despereaux the ways of being a mouse quickly gives up, and so Despereaux is left alone, free to spend his time as he wishes. 

Mostly, Despereaux wishes to daydream.

This simple activity in itself may not seem like a big deal, until one considers that Despereaux is doing things that are beyond even the Fantastic Mr. Fox. After all, despite his fantasticality, Mr. Fox's desires remain largly animalistic. He desires to eat good food, to protect his mate and his offspring, to have good game, and to be tricksy. 

Any fox we might otherwise observe will surely share in these desires: to hunt, to live, to expand the size of his den and further his own line.

 

Despereaux though, as we already discussed, is not just any mouse. He desires to transcend his own mousehood. He has little desire for food. When his sister tells him to eat the crispy pages of a book, Despereaux is perplexed. He would rather read it. While his siblings hunt for crumbs, Despereaux watches the light and he listens to the far off sound of music.

The music, we are told, is enough to make him forget the few mouse instincts he possesses, and so, Despereaux is led by his fate away from his siblings and right to the foot of the human king. 

 

We can all imagine what would happen to Mr. Fox had he forgotten his foxness so: he'd have been shot. His fur would likely have been turned into a hat, and his tail would have prematurely acted as a trophy. 

Despereaux's world is kinder. Indeed, I will tell you that the story ends with Despereaux sharing a table with the King and his daughter, an altogether whimsical image that can only be the stuff of fairytales.

 

Thus, the differential between the two worlds becomes once again evident. The world Dicamillo creates in this narrative is altogether lighter and more dreamy than that of any Roald Dahl book I've ever read, for in this world the gap between humanity and animality can be crossed with compassion and a willingness to change. 

These things are not available to the heroic creatures I mentioned in my last post. For Mr. Fox, for Hazel and Fiver, and for Peter Rabbit there is no crossing this gorge, for death stands in that valley. It is a law not to be breached; a disparity left agape with the curcuial disability of a limited language and an ultimate failure to see the life and possibility in the other. Be it the shortcoming of the beast or the man, these worlds are split apart, and in life they cannot be united. 

 

 

When I said that death does not live close in Despereaux's castle, I meant that death is by no means his next door neighbor. Even so, we find out very quickly exactly where death lives: in its most threatening form it lives in the dungeon, down a long winding staircase and many floors beneath Despereaux's own little feet. Yet, before we even know why, we are told that Despereaux is destined to go there. 

Indeed, the narrator herself tells us that it is fate that sends him there. With the sound of drumming and the smell of celery breath, bound to by a red thread, Despereaux is sent forth to meet death again. 

No mouse, we are told, has ever come back from the dungeons.

 

Despereaux does come back. He goes down the dark winding stair down which mice are sent to die, and he comes back up them again. 

In fact, he does so quite easily. He does not even do so himself. He is carried up on a tray, borne up by a girl named Miggery Sow, who, as I've already told you, will be the one to chop off his tail.

 

It is notable that the first thing Despereaux does when he comes to in the dungeon is to reach for his tail. Throughout the story so far, he has reached for tails often, sometimes his own, sometimes those of others, such as those of his older siblings. But there, with no other tail to cling to, Despereaux searches for his own and is frightened by how long it takes him to find it in the pitch black darkness. 

There in the black, with death circling around him, nearing him with sound of rat claws and long rat tails slithering, his own tail is the only comfort he can cling to.

 

It is also there that Despereaux utters the phrase "I need to live... I can't die," into the ear of the one who will save him.

It is also notable that Despereaux loses his tail the moment he leaves the dungeons. Just as he is recalled to the light and the life that it holds, Despereaux is greeted by a blinding flash as the cleaver comes down. 

So, Despereaux loses his tail. What do you think saved him?

If you want the techincal answer, Migger Sow did. She saved him when she saw more than just a filthy mouse, and so, as cook shouted the implacable words "kill him even if he's already dead", Miggory Sow missed him by a hair, and so Despereaux scurried away; he scurried like an actual professional mouse, the story tells us; for in this moment he is, after all, just an animal who has lost his tail and is running for his life. 

If you want the fairy tale answer, Despereaux's destiny saved him too. For Despereaux, we are told, is destined to save the princess, and thus, to eat soup at the table of the King.

 

That leaves us with one final question. Why did Despereaux have to lose his tail?

 

We are told by the people of Reepicheep that to wear a tail is an honour. 

Honour is a word often uttered by Despereaux throughout the course of his story. It is spoken by him to the princess when he first gives his heart to her. ("I honor you," he whispered with his paw on his heart.)

It is whispered by him in the face of danger and death when the princess is nowhere near, for it makes him feel braver to think of honouring her. 

 

So, one might say, Despereaux does honour her. He loses his tail for her, and so he honours her in the greatest way a little mouse can. Maybe even more.

 

I have, however, come to think that it is not quite that simple. After all, what does Despereaux's and Reepicheep's honour have to do with Mr. Fox's consequential world? The only mutual thread between the bullet, the cleaver, and the heat of battle is that they all have death in them. Yet, none of these critters ultimately dies within their story.

If we are to accept that the losing of a tail is a symbol for death, then we can be certain that these critters have all faced it.

So, why did they have to lose their tails at all?

Probably because only animals have tails; and because Despereaux, in order to transcend his animalness, had to lose a little. In order to unite animality with humanity, he had to give something up. 

 

As for Mr. Fox, he will never cross the breach between animality and humanity in this life. These two worlds cannot be united while they are living. 

Despereaux himself dies by all accounts but actuality: he is sent to the pit of no return, and comes back caked in blood and flour, looking altogether like a ghost. 

 

His story ends with a heavenly image as the author asks us to imagine a mouse and a rat at the table of a king, eating soup and being joyous. It is indeed the stuff of fairy tales. But by the light of this image, I see a heavenly twinge. 

 

 

 

In Despereaux's world death looks like a dark dungeon. Fortunately, it does not look so in mine. To me it looks a bit like the image Dicamillo leaves us with: of animal and humankind eating together at a table. To me, there is light even on the other side of death.

So, as I draw this mystery to a close at last, Reepicheep comes once again into my mind. I am not, however, thinking about his tail. 

I am thinking that Reepicheep is the only critter among all those I've mentioned that doesn't die, who will never die; not by the cleaver, or by the hunter, not in battle, not even by time.

I am thinking about Reepicheep in his little boat, sailing over the sweet waves into Aslan's country, there to depart from death forever. 

I cannot think of another place in literature where man and animal can live and dwell so well together, walk together, fight together, even die together, and then spend eternity together after all else is done.

 

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."  (Isiah 11:6-9)

Little Uncle Runs Home to Make Coffee

Let Pippi and her friends go trudging through rain storms and sleep in shacks and under pines, Little Uncle thought to himself. 

 

He was going to run back home where there was sugar cubs and pancakes. He was going to spend the next few days grazing in their front lawn and awaiting Pippi Longstocking's return on the front porch. And maybe, if he could manage it, he would have the coffee ready for them when they returned from their exertion. 

 

After all, running away from home was for the young. He wanted nothing more than to stay home where all was good and the food was tasty.

 

 I knew from the start that this was a field in which an Astrid Lindgren character needed to graze. And who could be a better individual for such a field than Little Uncle: trusted horse of Pippi Longstocking. 

 

In the episode in which Pippi and her friends run away from their respective homes, Little Uncle also runs off when a rainstorm sends him into a fright. 

 

I always loved the casualness with which Pippi responds to Anika and Tommy's worry, claiming that he was simply running home to make coffee so that they would have something warm to drink upon their return. 

 

Little Uncle is nothing if not a thoughtful horse.

 

I am glad he has joined my collection of animals going for a walk.