Work in Progress
Peter Hunt
Times change; books change. But should they? What happens
when they do, and why?
Legend has it that E. Nesbit, who has been credited with
founding the modern children’s book, used to wait eagerly at Christmas for her
annual ‘Waverley’
novel. One wonders what she would have thought of the situation a hundred years
later, when her own children’s books are thought to be too difficult for the
modern child.
Take the example of Five Children and It. In the original
1902 version, the children, much given to asking the immortal Psammead for flawed
wishes, are able to fly:
The Sand-fairy
blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny feeling, half
heaviness and half lightness on its shoulders. The Psammead put its head on one
side and turned its snail’s eyes from one to the other...
The
wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can imagine - for they were
soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in its place. And the feathers
were of the most lovely mixed changing colours, like the rainbow, or iridescent
glass, or the beautiful scum that sometimes floats on water that is not at all
nice to drink.
‘Oh
- but can we fly?’ Jane said, standing anxiously first on one foot and then on
the other.
‘Look
out!’ said Cyril; ‘you’re treading on my wing.’
‘Does
it hurt?’ asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for Robert had
spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker
suit - his boots in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than
when he was standing in them. But the
others cared but little how he looked - or how they looked, for that matter.
For now they all spread out their wings and rose in the air. Of course you all
know what flying feels like, because everyone has dreamed about flying, and it
seems so beautifully easy - only, you can never remember how you did it; and as
a rule you have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever
and uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four children rose flapping from the
ground, and you can’t think how good the air felt running against their faces.
Their wings were tremendously wide when they were spread out, and they had to
fly quite a long way apart so as not to get in each other’s way. But little things like this are easily
learned.
All
the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as well, are, I
find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels like to be flying, so
I will not try. But I will say that to look down
on the fields and woods, instead of along
at them is something like looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead
of silly colours on paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields
laid out one after the other.
And now let us move on to 2004, to the book of the film,
copyright (not entirely irrelevantly) by Sandfairy Merchandising. Here is the
same scene:
Jane squealed.
When Anthea and Cyril turned to look, they couldn’t believe their eyes – Jane
had sprouted a pair of wings!
Anthea
was next to scream, as she too sprouted wings from her back, and then Cyril did
the same.
‘Robert!’
growled Cyril. ‘He must have made a wish!’
There
was a beating noise at the window. It was Robert – and he was flying!
Cyril
opened the window.
‘You’ve
done it again!’ he yelled. ‘What were you thinking?’
Robert
hovered just outside the window.
Now, before traditionalists amongst us (and possibly Mr
Gove) commit hara-kiri, we might point out that the second version is supported
by copious illustrations (as well as, presumably, memories of the film), and so
the words are not so important as they were in the original. We now don’t need the contact with the narrative
voice, or the details or the evocation of emotions or atmosphere. And we
wouldn’t expect our readers (and by implication our fictional characters) to
accept the Greek Lexicon as a natural reference point for vocabulary. But, it might be argued, this is surely
simply a matter of progression – children of the 21st century are
used to multimedia and the relegation of written language to a subsidiary role.
But does the language that is left have to be quite so
clichéd, quite so functional?
Or was Ludwig wrong when he suggested that ‘Die grenzen meiner sprache sind die grenzen meiner
welt.’ Or should we re-interpret our
concepts of language?
The question is, how important was the stuff that was left
out? Take another classic, Treasure Island, and a classic scene. Jim, the narrator, has been pursued up the
mast of the Hispaniola by the murderous coxswain, Israel
Hands.
Now that I had a moment to
myself, I lost no time in changing the priming of my pistol, and then, having
one ready for service, and to make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw
the load of the other and recharge it afresh from the beginning.
My new employment struck Hands
all of a heap; he began to see the dice going against him, and after an obvious
hesitation, he also hauled himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk
in his teeth, began slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time
and groans to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I had quietly finished my arrangements
before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then, with a pistol in
either hand, I addressed him.
“One more step, Mr. Hands,” said
I, “and I’ll blow your brains out! Dead men don’t bite, you know,” I added with
a chuckle.
He stopped instantly. I could see
by the working of his face that he was trying to think, and the process was so
slow and laborious that, in my new-found security, I laughed aloud. At last,
with a swallow or two, he spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of
extreme perplexity. In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth,
but in all else he remained unmoved.
“Jim,” says he, “I reckon we’re
fouled, you and me, and we’ll have to sign articles. I’d have had you but for
that there lurch, but I don’t have no luck, not I; and I reckon I’ll have to
strike, which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner to a ship’s younker
like you, Jim.”
I was drinking in his words and
smiling away, as conceited as a cock upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back
went his right hand over his shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the
air; I felt a blow and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the
shoulder to the mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment - I scarce
can say it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious aim
- both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They did not fall
alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and
plunged head first into the water.
That was taken from Oxford University Press’s World’s
Classics: but Oxford publish another version (1988):
and in that, the same scene reads
I scrambled up the rigging, but
Hands followed me.
He threw his knife and pinned me
to the mast. I fired my pistols, and he fell into the water.
Gone are Jim’s devious character, the tension of the
conversation, the virtuoso narrative blindness (‘In order to speak he had to
take the dagger from his mouth…’), Jim’s denial of responsibility (‘I scarce
can say it was by my own volition’) and much more. This may seem to be terrible
loss – but only to certain readers – those who have faith in a certain form of
language, and a certain attitude to narrative, and a certain way of conjuring
images into the reader’s brain. To them,
not only is the second version sacrilege, but it is also positively damaging to
its readers.
The alternative view might be that it is better for readers
to read this than nothing at all – and it might lead them to the ‘real thing’;
and if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t matter – the world is full of good stories;
and in any case, that kind of reading isn’t really very useful to anyone in
2013.
So… are we dealing with an article of faith, rather than a
matter of linguistic concern?
(See this blog strand, Part 3!)
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