Some of these omissions can be forgiven if brevity is a priority, but how can you launch "The Wind in the Willows" without spring "moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing"? Divine discontent and longing are at the heart of this book; they propel the action and motivate the characters. I have always loved how this magical sentence opens the book. Take it out and Mole is just sick of cleaning.
Ah, now I understand the choice of illustrations. Michael Hague, Arthur Rackham and a parade of talented artists have lent their talents to Grahame's characters over the years. But what better illustrations for the adapter's drivel than lively cartoon figures? Here we see Mole perched atop a stool with a brush held high, globules of whitewash flying out from his brush and splashing fetchingly out from his swinging pail. If we have sacrificed text it is to make space for a play-by-play set of cartoon illustrations that tell all. In one picture Mole is thinking of Badger; we know he is because he has his paw thoughtfully at his chin and there's a picture of Badger in a balloon over his head. Next to him on the table is a cup of tea (so English!) and we know it's hot because three curvy lines are sticking up out of it. Can't you just taste it? No? Me neither.
Speaking of the senses, this is one of Grahame's, the real Grahame's, specialties. Here is Mole when he first catches the smell of his home after being away since his escape from spring cleaning months ago; he and Rat are walking in the snow at night:
"Rat ... was walking a little way ahead, as his habit was, his shoulders humped, his eyes fixed on the straight grey road in front of him; so he did not notice poor Mole when suddenly the summons hit him like an electric shock.
"We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal's intercommunications with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word 'smell,' for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning, inciting, repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while as yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.
"Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close to him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day's work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.
"The call was clear, the summons plain. He must obey it instantly, and go. 'Ratty!' he called, full of joyful excitement, 'hold on! Come back! I want you, quick!'"
OK, so I'm not the best at abridging. It was all I could do not to paste in the whole chapter here. And the "adapted" version? Like so much of the text on Ratty and Mole, the adapted version gave this entire chapter, "Dulce Domum," a miss.
I remember hanging on every word when my partner read this turning point to me 10 years ago, under our quilt together on our child-free grad student futon. I asked him to read it twice. What a thrill to walk in Mole's paws and smell -- with his acutely sensitive snout -- home in all its nuances and messages. And then recently, when my partner was reading aloud to our 5-year-old daughter, our 2-year-old son and me, all snuggled in our patchwork of mattresses and covers, he said, "Hil, here comes your favorite passage." "Oh, I know it!" I said.
Now, did our daughter have the faintest idea what Grahame was talking about? Heck, no. As with the previous chapters, we had to give Nora Jade little catch-up summaries as we went along, sharing our feelings about what we were reading. And as with most other sections, this led to a biology tangent. She wanted to know why smell was so important to animals. (She was allowed to interrupt at any time, as long as it related to the book.) Do weasels eat toads? What do badgers eat? What's the difference between a weasel and a stoat? Why do some animals live underground? We went back to the library for a good book on mammals and pored over it with all of our newfound curiosity.
Early on, we had despaired of how much explaining we had to do to keep her abreast of the action, and we thought perhaps it was too early for her genuinely to engage with it. Sometimes we would chuckle over Grahame's sophisticated vocabulary ("What the heck is 'appurtenance,' anyway?") and take guilty pleasure in Grahame's lengthy and flowery contructions. Some suggest this book for "age 9 and up," and that 9-year-old should probably be a patient soul with a handy dictionary.
Gently we suggested that we put "Wind in the Willows" aside until she was older, and return to "House at Pooh Corner," the A.A. Milne version, of course, in which she had been immersed all summer and fall. "Noooo!" she cried. She was in the grip of it, somehow, or in the spell cast by her parents' enjoyment. She got the story twice, first from Grahame's own words flowing over her, and then from us. In the first case she was in rapt attention; in the second, an irrepressible participant. By midway through the novel, she herself was generating versions of the story, retelling her favorite parts, imagining possible outcomes as the adventure unfurled, sitting up and gripping her covers in her excitement. And on more and more nights, like someone learning to ice-skate, she would glide for several paragraphs in silent and flawless comprehension, only to stop us now and then to ask about a word that was new to her.
More and more, Nora Jade probed us for explanations of the animals' motivations. Grahame certainly gave her much to chew on. Take the example of Mole smelling "home" and calling for Ratty; his friend was too far ahead to hear him clearly, and only urged him to catch up. Mole faced a terrible choice.
"Poor Mole stood alone in the road, his heart torn asunder, and a big sob gathering, gathering, somewhere low down inside him, to leap up to the surface presently, he knew, in passionate escape. But even under such a test as this his loyalty to his friend stood firm. Never for a moment did he dream of abandoning him. Meanwhile, the wafts from his old home pleaded, whispered, conjured, and finally claimed him imperiously. He dared not tarry longer within their magic circle. With a wrench that tore his very heartstrings he set his face down the road and followed submissively in the track of the Rat, while faint, thin smells, still dogging his retreating nose, reproached him for his new friendship and his callous forgetfulness."
Mole finally catches up to Ratty, but his suppressed sob breaks the surface, and he tells the Rat of his suffering, concluding:
"'We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty -- only one look -- it was close by -- but you wouldn't turn back, Ratty, you wouldn't turn back! O dear, O dear!'
"Recollections brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full charge of him, preventing further speech.
"The Rat stared straight in front of him, saying nothing, only patting Mole gently on the shoulder. After a time he muttered gloomily, 'I see it all now! What a PIG I have been! A pig -- that's me! Just a pig -- a plain pig!'
"He waited until Mole's sobs became gradually less stormy and more rhythmical; he waited till at last sniffs were frequent and sobs only intermittent. Then he rose from his seat, and, remarking carelessly, 'Well, now we'd really better be getting on, old chap!' set off up the road again, over the toilsome way they had come.
"'Wherever are you (hic) going to (hic), Ratty?' cried the tearful Mole, looking up in alarm.
"We're going to find that home of yours, old fellow,' replied the Rat pleasantly; 'so you had better come along, for it will take some finding, and we shall want your nose.'"