Ratty and Mole at 100

The Christmas season makes me think of both friends and family. Auld Lang Syne comes to mind - making me feel slightly maudlin (in the best way possible) as I think on good times past.  The year is ending, it's cold, and there are reunions with old friends and family members.  It felt fitting to read last week that Kenneth Graeme's masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows, has turned 100.

The Wind in the Willows was not a childhood favorite for me.  My Uncle Rick read it to my siblings, cousins and me when I was a kid.  I remembered Toad's wild adventures, but I think he was too manic for me and I never revisited it.  About five years ago I was listening to a lot of audiobooks and listened to the Terry Jones' narrated version on a solo road trip.  I was surprised to find not only the beautiful prose, but the lovely tale of friendship between the unlikely pair of Ratty and Mole.

The fifth chapter had me in tears.  There is something poignant about how Ratty responds to Mole's need to be home, once he realizes that he's been a bit of an ass in regards to his friend's feelings.  It hit close to home - I was living with one of my best friends at the time and it seemed to encapsulate a back and forth between friends perfectly.

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple -- how narrow, even -- it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

Anyway, the holidays are a perfect time to revisit with old friends - both real and literary.  Here's to friends and new adventures in the next year.

Comments

[Jennifer]

A perfect post, Claire... in so many ways.

I also just traveled back about 39 years to my grandparents house and this story, and how the mole was scary and yet familiar, all at the same time.

[Jennifer]

Ok... I thought I left a comment, but Typepad has been cranky lately. Anyhow, if it doesn't show up, let me say again that this was a perfect post in so many ways.

Also, you need to take this.

[Jennifer]

Oh... so now they both show up! Pffft!

[Kristen]

Oh, I love The Wind in the Willows. And it was not a childhood favorite for me, either; I first read it in college when I took Children's Literature.

[Uncle Rick]

Well, Claire, I'm still up to it. This New Year's morning I read chapters 1 and 2 to Maddison, but she was really more interested in the illustrations than the language, questioning the 'Gipsy caravan.' Thanks for the link!
UR