Charlotte's Web
General Musings: Some people asked me how to contact me with comments and questions--the poorly spelled email on the bar above isn't ideal--try me at bdmcasey@calgary.ca. Please be kind, I have a gentle ego.
This weekend I was in Canmore cross country skiing with my family and while the adults slept in the fold-out the kids slept in a king sized bed. Being a parent is often uncomfortable, fun and humbling. Canmore is very beautiful and I'd love to move there.
I had a dream about a friend last night. I depise when people regale me with their dreams so I won't do that but the upshot is I woke up missing her terribly. It has put me in a terrible funk but it has also got me creative juices going--I've decided to enter this years CBC non-fiction writing contest.
Running Page Count: 2,269
Today's Book: E.B. White's Charlotte's Web
Preface: I read it as a child but forgot everything but Wilbur, Templeton, and Charlotte. Rereading it as an adult I realized the language is not dated and it very cleverly talks about some big themes to a young audience. The version I read for the blog was a "collector's edition" with the original illustrations by Garth Williams put to full color by Rosemary Wells (of Max and Ruby fame) with a "very simple palette". E.B White published this book in 1952 seven years after Stuart Little and he won The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for both. He started his career as a writer with The New Yorker and co-wrote with James Thurber a piece called "Is Sex Necessary", a delightful dig on Freudianism. White later turned from his newspaper and magazine work to being a book author and poet who was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1973. He also won an honorary Pulitzer and a Presidential medal.
The Book: Charlotte's Web is a story about Wilbur, a runt of the litter pig, saved from an early death by the mercy of a little girl and again saved from slaughter by the ingenuity of a spider named Charlotte. Fern is the precocious eight-year-old farm girl who takes on the care of baby Wilbur. When Wilbur survives infancy he is sold to Fern's uncle who's farm Fern visits regularly and there she overhears the conversations of the animals including a rat named Templeton, the eponymous arachnid with an extensive vocabulary, Wilbur, and a barnyard full of others. Soon Wilbur learns of the meaning of his existence and is overwhelmed by his impending death. Charlotte saves the day, while battling her own problems, by using her webs to make people realize Wilbur's unique qualities and he ends up at the Fair competing for a ribbon and a pardon from the slaughterhouse. Better than his unique ability to squeal like a pig...
Grade: B (half a mark off for talking animals that can be heard by earnest humans)
Observations: The topic of death is approached deftly and with pragmatic sensitivity. Whether it is the song of lament from the crickets for the passing of summer, Charlotte's trapping and eating flies, the death of a character, or Wilbur's anxiety over the inevitable, White gives the topic of death a certain gravitas and comfort.
At the end of the first chapter Fern's brother Avery is sent to school with a donut and a gun! Charlotte has to leave Wilbur because it is unseemly to bring a pig to school-- but her brother can bring a gun? Strange.
Also, my favorite part is when Fern's mother, fearing her daughter has a screw loose, visits Dr. Dorain. Dr. Dorain is pretty philosophical and when he is asked about his impressions on the miracle web signs he points out with Existential non-chalance that all spider webs are miraculous.
Segues: There are two Charlotte's Web movie adaptations, a sequel, and video game. My favorite is the original 1973 animated version although I'm not completely sold on the soundtrack, here is Chin Up for your consideration:
Tomorrow's book (Modern Fiction): Robertson Davies' Fifth Business (9/501)
