1923: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

I had a feeling when I sat down to read this book that I wouldn't have to scrape around looking for environmental themes, and it turns out I was right. To start off this post, I think I'll include a quote from the Afterword of the edition I read, which contains an explanation from Hugh Lofting about his time serving in the first great war:

One thing, however, that kept forcing itself more and more on my attention was the very considerable part the animals were playing in the World War and that as time went on they, too, seemed to become Fatalists. They took their chances with the rest of us. But their fate was far different from the men's. However seriously a soldier was wounded, his life was not despaired of; all the resources of a surgery highly developed by the war were brought to his aid. A seriously wounded horse was put out by a timely bullet.

This did not seem quite fair. If we made the animals take the same chances as we did ourselves, why did we not give them similar attention when wounded? But obviously to develop a horse-surgery as that of our Casualty Clearing Stations would necessitate a knowledge of horse language.

That was the beginning of the idea: an eccentric country physician with a bent for natural history and a great love of pets, who finally decides to give up his human practice for the more difficult, more sincere and, for him, more attractive therapy of the animal kingdom. He is challenged by the difficulty of the work - for obviously it requires a much cleverer brain to become a good animal doctor (who must first acquire all animal languages and physiologies) than it does to take care of the mere human hypochondriac.

Lofting makes this animal-centric ideology the central vision of his novel. As a little extra-curricular activity for this week, I watched the film versions of the book, and I noticed that even Hollywood decided not to abandon some of the more serious environmental elements of the novels. The 2001 Eddie Murphy film Doctor Dolittle 2 (certainly not what one would call a serious film) portrays the Doctor fighting against the Evil Empire of logging. And I very much enjoyed one of the songs from the 1967 version, called "Like Animals":

This song is very much in keeping with the goals of the original novel, which, while mostly fantastical and absurd, contains several serious moments. One of these occurs when Dolittle first shows Stubbins, his new assistant, his "zoo." Stubbins expects to find cages, but instead he finds little stone houses, and Dolittle explains, "in my zoo the doors open from the inside, not from the out." It turns out that Dolittle's "zoo" is actually a kind of retirement village, entirely optional for the animals, most of whom have chosen to live there because of the convenience of the medical attention.

When Stubbins asks to see the large wild cats, however, Dolittle becomes upset. He says that if it were up to him,

there wouldn't be a single lion or tiger in captivity anywhere in the world [...] They are always thinking of the big countries they have left behind. You can see it in their eyes, dreaming - dreaming always of the great open spaces where they were born; dreaming of the deep, dark jungles where their mothers first taught them how to scent and track the deer.

I couldn't help but think as I read this passage of Rilke's "Panther":

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

Lofting has this same awareness of the paralyzed will, the image that enters the animal's heart and, having nowhere to go, disappears. Doctor Dolittle goes on:

What are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whipping through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cook, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day's hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for these? Why, a bare cage with iron bars, an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths!

This is tough medicine for someone who has oggled plenty of caged animals in her time. And yet I can't argue with Lofting that there is a certain dull horror in seeing large animals behind bars. I remember the last time I went to the zoo, as I was standing in front of a polar bear display, a family came to stand beside me. The mother shuffled her two children to the front so that they could see better. Then, when they had a nice view, she began to talk loudly about how miserable the polar bears were, about how they missed their native home, and how EVIL zoos are. Needless to say my little party shuffled off feeling as though some of the fun had been taken out of the zoo, but I haven't forgotten that little scene (and I'm sure the woman's children haven't either!).

Environmentalists have found such pleas for large animals worrying, because large animals like whales or polar bears - or animals with human-like faces such as gorillas or panda bears - are more likely to receive funding and media attention when their species is endangered. But Doctor Dolittle actually doesn't focus all his energies on defense of the larger animals. In this novel, Dolittle spends much of his time trying to learn the language of shellfish. While it is not such a stretch for us to believe that our domesticated pets are trying to communicate with us, very few people have thought of crustaceans or insects having any kind of language. But Dolittle explains to Stubbins that "some of the shellfish are the oldest kind of animals in the world that we know of [...] So I feel quite sure that if I could only get to talk their language, I should be able to learn a whole lot about what the world was like ages and ages ago." This is particularly interesting in contrast with last week's book, The History of Mankind, in which Van Loon writes, "Without written documents we would be like cats and dogs, who can only teach their kittens and their puppies a few simple things and who, because they cannot write, possess no way in which they can make use of the experience of those generations of cats and dogs that have gone before." Lofting emphasizes the idea that there is no such thing as a purely "human" history, because always in the background there are animals and the natural landscape that shaped us.

In addition to defending wild cats, Lofting also makes a compelling argument against bullfighting. When they arrive on a Spanish island and witness a procession honoring the noble bullfighters, Doctor Dolittle explains to his companions that the during a bullfight the "bull was allowed to tire himself out by tossing and killing a lot of poor, old, broken-down horses who couldn't defend themselves. Then, when the bull was thoroughly out of breath and wearied by this, a man came out with a sword and killed the bull." One might argue against such judgments for the sake of cultural sensitivity, but Doctor Dolittle is not attacking the Spanish people themselves. On the contrary, he says, "these Spanish people are most lovable and hospitable folk. How they can enjoy these wretched bullfights is a thing I could never understand."

That is not to say that cultural sensitivity is not an issue for this book. In the introduction to the edition I read, the editors explain that the original text of the book was "marred by racially insensitive language and artwork." They go on to say that, though they are "opposed to book banning and censorship" they are "equally committed to the idea that no book should undermine a child's self-esteem." Therefore, to make the novel "more suitable for twenty-first century readers" they made various changes. I am reminded of the recent controversy over a new edition of Huck Finn which edited out racial slurs. Of course, the debate immediately became polarized, with literary purists on one side and educators and the culturally sensitive on the other. Loorie Moore wrote an interesting article suggesting that because it is so hard to interest high school children in reading at all, we should just wait until college to try to teach this text.

Anyway, even with editing, there are still a few passages in Dolittle that make one wince, such as when Stubbins looks forward to meeting a black person because he has only ever seen them in circuses, or the Kipling-esque song written by Natives of South America in honor of Dolittle's exploits:

One was a Black - he was dark as the night;
One was a Redskin, a mountain of height;
But the chief was a White man, round like a bee;
And all in a row stood the Terrible Three.

Oh, strong was the Redskin; fierce was the Black.
Bag-jagderags trembled and tried to turn back.
But 'twas of the White Man they shouted, "Beware!"
He throws men in handfuls, straight up in the air!

Yes, there's definitely some White-Man's-burden action going on here. The remark that the "Indians were ignorant of many of the things that quite small children know" (how to make fire, how to cook food, how to build homes, how to make medicinal compounds - the list goes on and on) may or may not be tempered by the qualifying remark, "though it is also true that they knew a lot that white grown-ups never dream of."

But if you can get past the historical racism, this book has some valuable things to offer for an eco-critic. Apart from the direct appeals to reform zoos and end bull fights, he also gives animals voice and agency. Dolittle of course speaks animal language, suggesting that in his reality animals have a language apart from the bare necessity of grunts and growls. We're told that he's written"history books in monkey talk, poetry in canary language and comic songs for magpies to sing." Toward the beginning of the book, with the help of Doctor Dolittle's translations, a bulldog is able to take the stand as a witness in a murder trial.

And perhaps most important is Polynesia the parrot. Polynesia, we are told, is nearly 200 years old, and it is she who is responsible for teaching Dolittle the foundation of animal languages. Almost at the very beginning of the novel, Stubbins says, "sometimes I almost think I ought to say that this book was written by Polynesia instead of me." Perhaps Polynesia is a play on words - "poly" for many, as she is the key to the animal kingdom's many languages, their Tower of Babel. She comes up with the plans, earns money for their trips, and, in one case, even has to manipulate Dolittle, talking to him "as though she were talking to a wayward child."

Yes, despite a few awkward moments, I found this to be a very interesting book, and full of evidence that Lofting thought carefully about the plight of the natural world, particularly animals. As I research the topic of environmentalism and children's literature, I will keep this book in mind. Maybe I'll even read the other Dolittle books ... if I have time with all of these other Newbery books! Next week I read The Dark Frigate.

1922: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon

This seems like an appropriate book with which to begin my little reading journey. Maybe that's what those first judges also thought when they awarded The Story of Mankind with the inaugural Newbery Medal.

The Medal has been predominantly awarded to works of fiction, and yet you'll notice that this is a work of nonfiction. It seems as though Van Loon anticipated such a complaint. After describing a particularly absurd episode in human politics (of which, if you read the book, you will begin to notice an almost endless supply), he quips, "Why should we ever read fairy stories, when the truth of history is so much more interesting and entertaining?" I happen to be very fond of fairy stories, but van Loon tells humanity's story with such perception that you really do begin to see how all of human history is like a great long tale, fully of unlikely characters and surprising plot twists. Or, perhaps not so surprising. By the end of the book, I found myself agreeing with Van Loon's statement that "history is like life. The more things change, the more they remain the same."

The events in the book unfurl one episode after another in a steady chronological flow, with brief summations at the beginning and end of particularly influential eras. But here and there amidst the historical narrative and the dry commentary Van Loon squeezes entertaining little observations. In one, found toward the middle of the book, he gives us what might be considered his modus operandi:

Few things in human life are either entirely good or entirely bad. Few things are either black or white. It is the duty of the honest chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much.

Has van Loon taken his own advice? As I read I sensed a leaning toward the West - toward Western religion, politics, and thought. He explains any possible omissions of Eastern civilization by saying that he highlights "only those events of the past which can throw a light upon the conditions of the present world."

But while our neighbors further to the East might protest that their civilizations deserve a little more consideration, they should at least be grateful that they are largely spared his dry humor and keen observation. Van Loon delivers his "true account" with a really delightful straightforwardness. For example, he explains the centuries-long conflict between Catholics and Protestants by saying that "it was a question of hang or be hanged, and both sides preferred to do the hanging." Or take his statement that, after serving as Rome's dictator, Sulla "died quietly in his bed, having spent the last year of his life tenderly raising his cabbages, as was the custom of so many Romans who had spent a lifetime killing their fellow-men." A real gem, that one.

At first I thought this would have to be a purely descriptive post, and that I would have to wait for later books to hop on my environmental hobby horse. But though this book's themes are not overtly environmental, it is nonetheless contains a strain of environmental consciousness that cannot be entirely unconscious. Perhaps unsurprising for a book published in 1921 (only four years before the Scopes trial), he begins his history of mankind with evolution. The earth begins as a flaming ball of fire, then it transforms into a livable environment, and next our amoeba ancestors acquire lungs and subsequently migrate to land. Interesting - to an eco-critic's mind, at least - is his explanation that of all living organisms,

man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for the purpose of conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical development behind them.

A somewhat humanistic approach, you might think, to laud humanity as the pinnacle of nature's creatures. And yet he is not exactly praising humanity, only explaining that our minds are what allowed us to shape nature for our own purposes and survive its vagaries, over and above other creatures perhaps more fit for survival than us slow, hairless beings. Yes, he makes note of "the parting of the ways when man suddenly leaves the endless procession of dumbly living and dying creatures and begins to use his reason to shape the destiny of his race." But he retains a sort of sympathy for the rest of creation, which has borne up so long under the destructive use to which we have generally put those wonderful and unique minds. For instance, during one of the ice ages which carved out valleys and left mountains in their wakes, he writes that "many animals were in the habit of sleeping in dark caves. Man now followed their example, drove the animals out of their warm homes and claimed them for his own."

Van Loon seems to imply that our attitudes toward nature often translate into our attitudes toward other people. For instance, while covering the medieval period, he describes surfs as "those unfortunate human beings who are neither slaves nor freemen, but who have become part of the soil upon which they work, like so many cows, and the trees." Such people, I might add, are liable to be cut down and butchered like the cows and trees; he remarks elsewhere that a certain group of people "cut down forests and they cut each other's throats with equal energy."

I could say a lot more, about how he gives the landscape credit for so much of civilized development (of the Greeks: "don't you see how these surroundings must have influenced a man in everything he did and said and thought?"), or how he traces the development of small communities into large cities as one of the most influential changes in all of history, or about his acute awareness of the potential ills of property ownership. But I think I have said enough already to suggest that this is a very worthwhile read. If nothing else comes of this blog, I am glad to have read this book, which I don't know that I would have encountered otherwise. Next week, of course, I will be reading Dr. Doolittle, which I'm certainly looking forward to.

Starting at the beginning

I've been watching my cursor blink impatiently for several minutes while I wondered how to start this blog. The simple answer is to start at the beginning - that is, the beginning of my decision to embark on this little project. But that's not as simple as you'd think.

During my short year or so as an independent scholar, I have come to the conclusion that I could spend a lifetime analyzing children's literature. Why? Among many other reasons, because literature for children will shape the thoughts and opinions of future generations, and because it radically shaped my own life and thinking. But when I ask myself why I want to share what I find, I realize that my great interest lies in the way children's books talk to one another, to adult books, and to culture at large.

When I write critical analysis, I feel a little like I'm writing the gossip column of some cheap magazine. You'll never guess what I overheard Philip Pullman saying to John Milton ... Think you know Roald Dahl? Read on for shocking new revelations! That sort of thing. Of course, the funny thing is that anyone and everyone can eavesdrop on books. It just so happens that when I listen carefully, I hear things that no one else has heard before. Last spring the journal Children's Literature published an article I had written about David Almond's Skellig and its conversation with William Blake. While several people have written scholarly pieces on Skellig, I read its lines and heard whispers of Blake's contraries, and I knew I had to share what I had overheard. Since publishing that article, I've followed several lines of inquiry: applying Freudian psychoanalysis to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, delving into the anti-Lewis sentiments of Philip Pullman, teasing out the idea of the child and the adult in AS Byatt's The Children's Book. Like Whitman's spider, I have launched forth filament after filament, musing and venturing, seeking for connections.

Now I believe I have connected my spheres at last - or, at the very least, I've decided which spheres to focus on. I have begun writing a book-length study on ecocriticism and contemporary children's literature. As I sat down to write the introduction, thinking about the future of environmental texts for children, I realized that it would be essential for me to also know about their past. And that's where this blog comes in.

The first Newbery medal was awarded in 1922. In the 89 years since then, the medal has come to represent a sort of guarantee. While the winning novels are often different in scope and approach, the medal on their cover suggests that not only should the reader expect to find a well-written story, he or she should also expect to encounter ideas and themes which were important to many readers when the medal was awarded. Of course, such a tradition of evaluation is complicated by issues of cultural "gatekeepers" and the way "universal" values tend to marginalize minorities. After all, this is an award given to adults by adults, but for books which are meant to be read by children. Nonetheless, considering the longevity of the award, I decided this was a good place to start tracing the changing attitudes toward the environment in children's literature, for no other reason than it reflects literary preferences and values of nearly a century of readers.

For the next 90 weeks, then, I will read one Newbery winner a week, beginning with the winner for 1922 and ending with the 2012 winner of the medal, which is of course yet to be decided. On Sunday I will post any thoughts I've had about each book - environmentally related themes if I can find them or, if not, any other observations I come up with. Hopefully, someone will enjoy my comments or have comments of their own to make. But if not, then it will have been worth it to keep a record of 90 years of novels, and a year of my life spent reading them.