Leah's Full Review: Astrid Lindgren - The Adventures of Pippi Longstoc...
Few memories of my childhood in West Los Angeles, CA remain as vivid, consoling, and, well, centering as those that find me, book in hand, face in book, seeking sanctuary and inspiration from the written word.
Blessedly, from ages six to thirteen, I lived literally a hop, skip, and an ivy-laden, chain link fence jump from the Palms Park Public Library. The library shelves were as irresistible and magnetic to me as those of a candy store, and the analogy is not used lightly; I was as obsessed with where my next sugar fix would come from as with where my next literary hit might be scored.
I gorged on the heartstring tuggers involving animals like The Yearling and Charlotte's Web; the exotic and foreign land themes of Mara, Daughter of the Nile and the entire series of Frank Baum's Oz books; the family angst and tribulations in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and the entire Little House On The Prairie line. And in my lighter moments, the Nancy Drew mysteries and Archie Comics, of course.
But through it all, one heroine remains forever etched into my own freckle faced, outspoken, insecure, quick-to-anger, deeply sensitive, sharp-tongued, "too smart for her own good" memory: Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking.
"Half again as smart as a girl should be"
I read the words "Pippi Longstocking" and I see her flaming red braids, her grossly oversized shoes, her freckled complexion that she personally finds irresistibly beautiful, and the monkey on her shoulder. I see little Laura, perhaps age 8 or 9, sitting against the side of her modest tract house on the tiny patch of grass just beyond the asphalt driveway, sequestered underneath the baby pink rose bush, reading as if her life and sanity depended on it. And they did.
I recently had the chance to review the CD from Carousel in a Music Expert Write Off. I discussed how personally distasteful the themes were to me, and none more so than Billy's assertion that his not-yet-born daughter will be "half again as smart as a girl should be." While I may have danced a ballet performance to the opening instrumental tune ("The Carousel Waltz"), how lucky, (and damn near prophetic I realized in just this moment of writing), that the song with lyrics that I danced to in the same show was "Belly Up to the Bar, Boys". Hmmm....
"They say as a child I appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas"
How grateful am I that I sought and found a role model as a young girl in Pippi Longstocking. She inspired and entertained me as a child. In the re-reading of the three books in one wonderful oversized volume at age 42, I am astounded at how many out loud laughs her wit and wisdom gift me. While another reviewer on this site listed under Cons for this book: "might inspire Pippi-like behavior", I say: please Dear God may it be so! (Of course, I must point out this very second that I am not a mother or a teacher. My perspective may be, per usual, uniquely my own here, but that's what I get paid the big bucks for on this site, right? See - THAT was a Pippi-ism, right there!)
Pippi is not only incredibly imaginative and creative, she is quick-witted, silver-tongued, and strong. So strong, in fact, she can and does routinely lift her horse, policemen, bullies who whip their horses, thieves, sharks, and all other would-be harassers high above her head, hurling them into the air several times, usually for free, if she is in a good mood that day.
Pippi's mother is in heaven, and her father is a cannibal king on a South Sea island after getting blown overboard during a sailing trip with Pippi. She lives quite happily at Villa Villekulla with her monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and her horse, who contentedly hangs out on the front porch. She spends her days entertaining and enchanting her neighbors, Tommy and sister Annika. In Pippi's universe of one, there is no ordinary. Everything is magical, wonder-full, alive with possibility, amenable to shape-shifting, and extra, extra ordinary.
As I read the chapters again this week, I found myself flipping out of the starving-for-fantasy child's mind over into the adult writer's mind, struck with absolute awe and admiration for Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish author (born 1907) who created this wonder child back in 1941. Pippi was born in a series of bedtime tales told to Lindgren's own young daughter who spontaneously named the character. What a mind! In 1944 Lindgren finally put the stories into manuscript form as a gift for her daughter's 10th birthday, and then, almost as an afterthought, sent it along to a publisher in her native Sweden. It was rejected. Two years later it won first prize and a publishing contract after she submitted it to a girls' book contest. You can surely guess the amount of initial, reactionary controversy that swirled around the book, even though it was quite popular. Pippi was not the cookie cutter girls' book heroine back then: quiet, sweet, and gentle.
Viking Press published the first book, Pippi Longstocking, in 1950. After a slow start and words of discouragement from her American editor, Lindgren eventually saw her cheeky little heroine find her audience with translations in more than fifty languages, three feature films, selling more than 6 million copies in the United States alone. While I will never be able to tell you if the original Swedish translation is as staggeringly clever and electrically quick-witted and alive with imagery, I would wager a big YES guess on it.
This collection (which incorporates the first book as well as Pippi Goes On Board and Pippi In The South Seas) offers some fine color and black ink illustrations by Michael Chesworth. I noticed at times how much I appreciated the blank ink drawings if I was confused about some action sequence, ie, Pippi on a tightrope with her back bent so that she could scratch her nose with her shoe. But, I also found some of them too descriptive and overly detailed in planting the image of how the characters might look. I know, I know...children younger than I need and love the pictures. I am just making the point that sometimes one's own inner visualization of what someone looks like is far better than the reality. Oops - off topic again. I'm sure that is a relationship editorial topic somewhere on this site.
Would I lie to you?
I have selected a few exceptionally delightful passages from the collection to share that made me roar.
In the very first meeting with Tommy and Annika, Pippi is being reprimanded by Annika for lying. She responds:
"Yes, it's very wicked to lie... but I forget it now and then. And how can you expect a little child whose mother is an angel and whose father is a king of a cannibal island and who herself has sailed on the ocean all her life-how can you expect her to tell the truth always? And for that matter...let me tell you that in the Congo there is not a single person who tells the truth. They lie all day long. Begin at seven in the morning and keep on until sundown. So if I should happen to lie now and then, you must try to excuse me and to remember that it is only because I stayed in the Congo a little too long. We can be friends anyway, can't we?"
"Oh sure," said Tommy and realized suddenly this was not going to be one of those dull days.
Tommy and Annika never see another dull day after that!
Soon after a pair of policemen come to the Villa to insist that Pippi attend school. Some of the funniest chapters for me revolve around Pippi trying to integrate and "mainstream" into the classroom and staid school system. The policeman asks her to consider how embarrassing it will be for her one day when she is grown and someone asks her the capital of Portugal and she can't answer. Her reply:
"Oh, I can answer all right...I'll answer like this: 'If you are so bound and determined to find out what the capital of Portugal is, then, for goodness' sakes, write directly to Portugal and ask.' "
The policeman asks her would she not be sorry not to know it herself?
"Oh, probably...No doubt I should lie awake nights and wonder and wonder, 'What in the world is the capital of Portugal?' But one can't be having fun all the time."
That just KILLED ME!
"Tongues dry up if you don't use them" (P.L.)
OK, now here we have Pippi zapping her teacher with a big metaphysical One-Two punch after she has just publicly humiliated a man who was beating his poor horse in front of the entire class:
The teacher instructs: "That is why we are here, to be good and kind to other people."
Pippi: "Heigh-ho...then why are the other people here?"
Are you digging this feisty little spitfire chick yet? Are you seeing the potential quick-retort-artist-in-training your child could be with just a chapter or two from this collection every night? (Not to mention a highly trusted and most popular reviewer of products on epinions.com)
Or, how about at the Fair when the shooting gallery booth woman, thinking Pippi and her two little well-mannered cohorts are bad for real business, asks them angrily:
"Are you still here?"... and Pippi fires back:
"No, we're sitting in the middle of the square cracking nuts."
Would that my own come-back skills were half as honed as this nine year old's! (I would write a lot more magazine reviews a la cowboydj and Lambira, for one thing.)
I will close with one of the best Pippi-isms in the book from a wonderful chapter in the Pippi In The South Seas collection. A very pompous, self-impressed rich man has come to town and is dead set on buying Villa Villekula intending to tear it down and rebuild. Pippi has so much fun yanking this guy's chain throughout I squirmed in my chair at her brilliance. As he is finally reading to turn tail and run, having "gained so much respect for Pippi" by now, Pippi stares him down and says:
"It was fun to solve riddles with you a while ago. Come to think of it, I know one more. Can you tell me what the difference is between my horse and my monkey?"
Of course he can only shake his head "no" in deference to the wunderkind now.
"It's quite tricky, but I'll give you a small hint. If you should see them both together under a tree and one of them should start to climb up the tree, then that one isn't the horse."
Oh man. She just SLAYS me. I must go get a tissue.
Fear not the Princess Pippilotta!
The worst you will probably end up with if you introduce her to your daughters (and sons) is a highly intelligent, dynamically creative, supremely snarky and quick-with-words, actress/comedienne/writer wanna-be.
Just my epinion.
I could be wrong.
This review is one of many posting tonight in unison, from coast to coast, in celebration and commemoration of forkids' 400th epinion. Cheers and Cheerios to the Classiest of all Classy Chicks!
Please do go savor the childhood memoirs and treasured literary companions of these gifted reviewers, most of whose reviews can be found on this page:
Since Pippi Longstocking was first published in 1950, the escapades of the incomparable Pippi have delighted boys and girls alike. Now, for the first ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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