Perhaps I'm feeling overly crabby today, but I just had to get this off my chest. I don't like the Winnie the Pooh stories. Not the Milne poetry, either. There I've said it. The classic E. H. Shepard illustrations are the sweetest things, no doubt. But it kills me to read the stories. Passages such as the following cause my eyes to roll to the back of my head and froth to leak from the corners of my mouth:First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee."
There are just so many other offerings in classic stories that I prefer to spend my time reading aloud to the boys. Take the Beatrix Potter tales or The Wind in the Willows. Now there is some fine literature! Sorry, Pooh. You're cute but witless and so must go!
O.K. I'm done. You may now throw your rotten vegetables.
5 comments:
You are too funny!
I, too, pooh-pooh Pooh.
I don't know how it got to be so classic - I suspect the charming illustrations. There is something really odd about Milne... someting a little creepy about his lispy, child-luring baby-talk. Did you know that Disney (to whom he sold the rights to Pooh) destroyed all his papers? Was infantilism more than a literary hobby? Yikes.
Suffice it to say that I have never uttered a Pooh chapter to any child in this home, though a couple of his books are on the shelf and have been read by Helena (who reads absolutely everything).
"... something a little creepy about his lispy, child-luring baby-talk."
Fantastic! I knew I couldn't be the only one who felt this way. I have to admit though, I started worrying a little bit about dissing Pooh. After all, who am I to rag on beloved literary characters? I lay awake all night waiting for the silly-old villagers to storm the house with pitchforks and torches whilst riding upon Heffalumps. yeesh.
Tigger will bounce you now for sure.
I am so thankful that there are other moms who shovel Pooh out of the house! My youngest daughter loves the (mostly Disney versions) characters so I tolerate them in stuffed form (or blanket form in one case) but I draw the line at the stories. Blech! Now, I did read Prince Rabbit written by A.A. Milne and I didn't throw up in my mouth so now it is the story of choice if we decide to celebrate the author's birthday which we have done as a little diversion before although reading Bab's comment makes me want to put an end to that.
Would it totally creep you out to know that we have one book of his called A Gallery of Children? I think it was a gift from someone.
Ha! Matilda! I love that you use the lack of throw-up in your mouth as a viable measure of good literature! What would we call that particular scale of measure? The biblio-vomitus scale?
Post a Comment