Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

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Busytown: Holiday reading lust

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  • giovanni tiso,

    You've just given me another reason to be irritated by Winnie the Pooh. A reason I hardly needed, to be perfectly honest.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Dude, there will be handbags at dawn if you're going to slag off my Pooh. Or my Eeyore. Actually, *especially* my Eeyore.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • webweaver,

    Heh. Danielle, I'm right behind you in the queue - handbag at the ready. No-one disses any of the inhabitants of 100 Aker Wood and gets away unscathed - not even Gio!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 332 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    I'm with Giovanni. Winnie the Pooh is unbearably twee. Give me the ineffably strange, philosophical, bracingly unsentimental Moomins any day.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Dude, there will be handbags at dawn if you're going to slag off my Pooh.

    I don't need to, they practically slag themselves.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • webweaver,

    Can't we have both? Pooh versus the Moomins isn't a zero-sum game is it?

    <smallvoice>Pooh's not twee... he's, he's FABULOUS</smallvoice>

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 332 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    You've just given me another reason to be irritated by Winnie the Pooh. A reason I hardly needed, to be perfectly honest.

    and

    Dude, there will be handbags at dawn if you're going to slag off my Pooh. Or my Eeyore. Actually, *especially* my Eeyore.

    Gio, you can hardly blame Shepherd for having a cuter kid than Milne. Christopher Robin Milne was a real sourpuss, even in photos as a child.

    Danielle, I have to agree, W the P is great, and Eeyore is the greatest. Several passages are guaranteed to make small children laugh out loud.


    The problem with books like Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows is they were meant for kids about 2 - 5 but to be read to them. By the time a kid is old enough to read it by themselves the books are too juvenile and saccharine.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • webweaver,

    Crikey - I must have a mental (emotional?) age of between 2 and 5 then, because I still read them sometimes and I still love them to bits and they still make me laugh out loud. :)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 332 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Christopher Robin Milne was a real sourpuss, even in photos as a child.

    Which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. But really I should be grateful our brood never took to it, in spite of the barrowful of books we inevitably accumulated at birthdays and christmases. They did however fall for the far awfuller Thomas.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Crikey - I must have a mental (emotional?) age of between 2 and 5 then, because I still read them sometimes and I still love them to bits and they still make me laugh out loud. :)

    Immature readers unite! I just re-read that first story about Pooh pretending to be a small black cloud attached to a blue balloon and laughed myself. "I think the bees suspect something!" Heh.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • webweaver,

    "I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees."

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 332 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    You've just given me another reason to be irritated by Winnie the Pooh. A reason I hardly needed, to be perfectly honest.

    Tosh. Tonstant Weader may have frowed up, but I have to thank Milne for inspiring so many scabrous parodies of his light verse.

    My personal favourite:
    Golden-haired boy on the edge of a street
    In his tight blue jeans on his lonely beat
    Hush! Hush! I'm rather afraid
    Christopher Robin is looking for trade.

    Or there's the truly not safe for work (or anywhere else) one that begins:

    They're changing guards at Buckingham Palace,
    Christopher Robin goes down on Alice,
    Alice is marrying one of the guard,
    "A soldier's dick is terribly hard",
    Says Alice.
    ...

    ...and gets much, much worse.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Dorothy Parker could resist the charms of Pooh:

    "And it is that word "hummy", my darlings, that marks the first place in "The House at Pooh Corner" at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up."

    (from her 1928 review in the New Yorker)

    (trust Craig to get in first with a lacerating quote!)

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    I adore Dorothy Parker, and I think her snap on Milne is very funny. But... I still love Pooh.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • webweaver,

    Aw drat! I need a digital subscription to The New Yorker! The google links to the full review all go to hidden-behind-firewall places and it looks like it might be a very funny read...

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 332 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    dyan - it's a very long time since I read "Toby Tyler" (about 55 years actually) and the only character that has stayed with me is Mr Stubbs.
    Who most definitely was a chimp in the Disney film (as well as in the illustrations in my friend's book.)

    Incidentally, a fullgrown male Pan troglydytes (the 'common' chimpanzee) weighs under 100lb (in zoos, they can get to double that)
    rarely stands erect, but would reach between 4'6" & 5 foot if their legs could straighten. Like a lot of humans, they lose weight as they age.The bonobo (Pan paniscus) is more gracile- and not infrequently walks upright- but still a significantly sized primate.

    I did mention apes fascinate me? Please excuse the 'more info than you really wanted to know' gush-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Give me the ineffably strange, philosophical, bracingly unsentimental Moomins any day.

    Gordon Campbell has a very good piece on the Moomins, in his latest Werewolf http://werewolf.co.nz/2009/12/classics-tales-from-moominvalley-1962-by-tove-jansson/

    Joe Wylie has already discovered it and posted comments. I also noted that the Moomins have never travelled widely, except for the Japanese, who focus on the 'cute' factor.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Hosking,

    the only Milne parody I know is clean:

    "Hurrah! Hurah!
    Nobody cares.
    Christopher Robin
    Has fallen downstairs."

    I loved the the House at Pooh Corner (and Winnie the Pooh, albeit less so) as a kid but never could get into the 'Now We Are Six' poems. Too twee.

    And yeah, Eeyore was always my favourite. LIke when he's introduced to Tigger and Pooh (or was it Piglet) says 'he's just arrived!' and Eeyore looks up and says 'When's he going?'

    I wrote a column in NBR this year talking about how B ill English was playing Eeyore to John Key's Tigger. I seldom skite about my work but I was rather proud of that.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Thanks Geoff, that is a lovely and perceptive essay by Gordon Campbell. He makes some interesting (see the conversation above) comparisons between Moominland and AA MIlne's 100 Acre Wood:

    In Moominvalley, she created a fictional universe as fully realized – to take one recurring comparison – as the 100 Acre Wood of A. A. Milne. Think about it : rural setting, naïve hero, much good nature and whimsy, creatures who seem part animal, part human. Milne’s world though is resolutely male-centered ( Kanga excepted) and was inspired, reportedly, by his father’s experience with a school for boys.

    Jansson’s world is far more female-oriented. It does contain one stereotyped female character ( the Snork Maiden) but it also offers several strong female characters besides Moomimamma ( eg Too-Ticky, Little My and the Groke) and this strength is expressed in quite different ways.

    You nailed it, Gordon.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • richard,

    Joe Wylie has already discovered it and posted comments. I also noted that the Moomins have never travelled widely, except for the Japanese, who focus on the 'cute' factor.

    I think I have only really encountered Moomin in Japan, and not in literary form.... I used to eat curry a couple of times a week at a curry house called "Moomin" in Takadanobaba in Tokyo, across from where I worked. It had six stools at a counter, and you queued for an empty spot.

    Unusually for Japan, you ordered the curry on an open-ended scale of potency (an Italian guy who also worked there once got to "12" and was sick for a couple of days), and when I told the proprietor I was leaving he gave me a huge bottle of sake that caused me all sorts of excess baggage problems at Narita the following day....

    Not looking for New Engla… • Since Nov 2006 • 268 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Japanese curry! What's it like? (other than variably potent)?

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    I too loved the Moomin books, and later the Summer Book. Those, plus staunch heroine Pippi Longstocking, made me keen on things Scandinavian, and the top destination for my OE.

    My friend, who is also a Moomin fan, visited Japan a couple of years ago. High on her list was seeking out the Moomin shops there and she brought us all lots of nice Moomin-memorabilia.

    My favourite character is the aspergic Hemulen, who is also useful if you need word association to remember the word hermeneutics, which is possibly what we are doing here.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    Small girl child, while I was reading her Finn Family Moomintroll many years ago and we had Little My fore & front, "That's little me." "No, her name is Little My." Kid, stabbing forefinger definitively, "No! Little MEEE!"

    She's grown up like that too.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    Those, plus staunch heroine Pippi Longstocking, made me keen on things Scandinavian, and the top destination for my OE.

    Pippi Longstocking and Mary Poppins have to be the two of the most underrated book series, in that everyone's seen the movie, but no-one seems to read the books, and they are excellent.

    (I also recall another really good Scandinavian childrens' book series, but the name escapes me - about a bunch of kids living on neighbouring farms?)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Isabel Hitchings,

    I adored Pippi Longstocking with a passion but didn't ever really get the hang of Moomins.

    Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report Reply

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