from Pooka 34 by Ruth
Berman ,
for the June 1996 Once Upon a Time
apa #34.
(This review appeared in the March 1992 Mythprint . . . I am reprinting
the review now in memory of P.L. Travers, August 9, 1899-April 23, 1996.)
reproduced on these web pages by permission of the author--ddl
[publishing info note: Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane. Dell
Yearling softcover, 1982, $1.95. 91 pp. I don't have info on the hardcover
price. Mary Poppins and the House Next Door. Delacorte Press, hardcover,
1988, $12.95. 93 pp. What the Bee Knows, Reflections on Myth, Symbol
and Story, Aquarian Press, softcover, 1989; distributed by Harper &
Row, $14.95. 303 pp. All by P. L. Travers. Reviewed by Ruth Berman.]
The Mary Poppins books have been popular ever since Mary Poppins
appeared in 1934. But the publication of new Mary Poppins writings by P.
L. Travers hasn't been noticed much. They make up a graceful, endearing,
slightly melancholy coda to the series.
I wonder if the inspiration to return to Cherry Tree Lane came as a side
benefit to protests against racism. Originally, the series was three books
- Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, 1935, and Mary Poppins
Opens the Door, 1943; and in 1952 came Mary Poppins in the Park,
a collection of incidents meant to take place during the original three,
rather than a sequel. And that was it, except for the Mary Poppins ABC
Book (1962). But then in 1981, Travers revised the "Bad Tuesday"
chapter of MP, in which Mary Poppins took the children to the four points
of a magic compass, where they met stereotype Eskimos, Blacks, Chinese,
and American Indians. The Eskimo, Chinese, and Indian stereotypes don't
give much offense - they give some, because the presentation of groups as
quaintly exotic tends to turn them into toys, but the objection is slight
compared to the stereotyping which presents Blacks as apparently stupid,
unable to master the language they speak. ("You bring dem chillun dere
into ma li'l house for a slice of water-melon right now.") It's to
Travers' credit that although she didn't see why the affectionately-intended
stereotypes should give offense, she realized that those who said the stereotypes
were offensive were dealing with an important issue. She revised the chapter
so that the compass points are represented by a Polar Bear, a Macaw (south),
a Panda (east), and a Dolphin (west). And Mary Shepard, the original illustrator,
changed the illustration of the compass points accordingly. Shepard (the
daughter of E. H. Shepard, the Pooh illustrator) illustrated all of the
Poppins books (although in the American editions of MP Opens the Door,
some drawings were by Agnes Sim, after wartime travel restrictions prevented
the arrival of the originals). This fifty-year collaboration of author and
illustrator must be almost unprecedented. Shepard drew herself and Travers
into the "Balloons and Balloons" chapter of MP Comes Back,
soaring together into the air on magical balloons, and that professional
companionship has endured.
Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane appeared in 1982. It corresponds
to the three chapters in the original threesome, "Full Moon,"
"Evening Out," and "High Tide," in which Mary Poppins
brings Jane and Michael to see that they're one with nature, all turning
in the dance of the Grand Chain: one with earth, sky, and sea. The Full
Moon governs the earthly zoo and the "High Tide," and appears
again in the "Evening Out" starry circus. (In MP in the Park,
in the corresponding chapter, "Halloween," the Full Moon falls
on the eve of Mary Poppins' birthday, which is Halloween, and the children
join a revel of all shadows.) In MP in Cherry Tree Lane, the same
unity is shown with the metaphor reversed. Instead of having the children
go to the stars, on Midsummer's Night's Eve, the stars come down to Earth
to delight in the fruits of the Earth, specifically, the cherries of Cherry
Tree Lane and the herbs in the Herb Garden within the Park. Travers includes
a bow to Australia, where she was born and grew up, by including the Fox
and Goose, the Hare, and the Dove, along with such more northerly constellations
as Orion, the Bear, and the Twins, among the Midsummer visitors.
Mary Poppins and the House Next Door (1988) corresponds to the chapters
in earlier books in which Mary Poppins visits her anarchic relations, Uncle
Albert Wigg ("Laughing Gas," MP), and Cousins Arthur Turvy ("Topsy
Turvy, MP Comes Back), Fred Twigley ('MT Twigley's Wishes,"
MP Opens the Door), and Samuel Mo ("The Park in the Park,"
MP in the Park). Mary Poppins and her family represent powers of
soaring imagination, and they are opposed by ploddingly sensible humans.
The most regular opponent of Mary Poppins is the weakest, the Park-Keeper,
who vainly tries to make people keep off the grass and obey the by-laws.
The most fearsome opponent is the reverse of the "nurse" (or "nurserymaid,"
in Americanese) Mary Poppins, the governess Euphemia Andrews, the Holy Terror.
In "Miss Andrew's Lark" (MP Comes Back), she stomps into
Cherry Tree Lane, with a caged lark for company. Mary Poppins frees the
lark and banishes Miss Andrews. Miss Andrews is seen again in 'High Tide'
(MP Opens the Door), when the angler-fish pull her beneath the sea,
and in 'The Faithful Friends" (MP in the Park) she sends a box
of souvenirs to Cherry Tree Lane for safe-keeping, because her doctor has
ordered her to take a South Seas voyage to recover from "some sort
of a shock." In MP and the House Next Door, she has made her
way back from the South Seas, bringing Luti, a boy from the Islands, with
her, as she moves into the house next door. Mary Poppins takes Luti and
the children to her uncle, the Man in the Moon, to be guided home. This
Moon, following an old tradition (as in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso),
is the jumbled repository of all lost things. Miss Andrews is banished again,
leaving the neighborhood free to people the empty house again with imaginary
friends.
Since 1976, when Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition began
publication, Travers has been a regular contributor and consultant editor.
In 1989, a collection of her essays from Parabola (with a few from
other sources) was published as What the Bee Knows, Reflections on Myth,
Symbol and Story. To readers used to thinking of Mary Poppins as a spirit
as English as Tolkien's Farmer Giles, it's surprising that she was born
and grew up in Australia, the child of an Irish father and a Scottish/Irish
mother, and her literary allegiance was to Yeats, AE, and the Celtic Twilight.
Her first submissions to British editors were poems to AE, then editor of
The Irish Statesman. One of the essays in the collection, "The
Death of AE: Irish Hero and Mystic" (from The Celtic Consciousness,
ed. R. 0. Driscoll, 1981), is a loving tribute to his generous encouragement.
In one of the essays, Travers borrows the terminology of Tolkien's "On
Fairy Stories," and briefly discusses his work, in "The Primary
World" (for an issue of Parabola with a theme of "The Child").
She much admires his essay, but feels doubtful about his fiction, feeling
that the use of mythology in it is an over-intellectual invention, too removed
from the direct emotional understanding of the folktale to work. (Some further
comments on Tolkien's fiction come in "Where Will All the Stories Go?,
a conversation between Laurens van der Post and P. L. Travers," making
the same point.) It isn't clear if she would apply the same criticism to
her own fiction. Maybe she wouldn't. In essays and interviews when she's
asked about the origin of Mary Poppins, she says that she did not invent
her, and has no idea where she comes from. "The Interviewer" (for
an issue with a theme of "The Creative Response") is an amusing
account of her difficulties dealing with an interviewer who insists that
Mary Poppins must "come from somewhere," and waves aside as frivolous
Travers' question, "Why not from nowhere?" Trying to answer him,
Travers remembered a story she told her younger siblings about a magic horse,
for consolation when their mother was annoyed with them, and how hard it
was for her to deal with the anger she felt at her mother for this momentary
rejection. Looking back, suddenly she could rejoice that the grief had been
temporary, and marveled that the magic horse could do so much to bring happiness
from sorrow. But meantime the interviewer had left, she said, and so she
could not tell him, and it wouldn't have been an answer anyway, for it wouldn't
have explained where the horse came from, she points out, for, as C. S.
Lewis said in a letter, 'There is only one Creator and we merely mix the
elements He gives us." (See Lewis' letter to Sister Penelope, C.S.M.V.,
Feb. 20, 1943, Letters, p. 203.) She adds that the statement is "less
simple than it seems," for the "mixing" is essential, too,
and remains a mystery even to the mixer.
Similarly, in an earlier essay, "Only Connect" (a speech, first
printed in the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal, 1967), she
tries to talk specifically on the topic of "How Mary Poppins came to
be written," and, finding herself at a loss, sidesteps to her development
as a lover of books and, especially, of myths and fairy tales and the ways
their images keep connecting, in spite of immense differences of tone and
topic. (For instance, she realized after she had written her 'Halloween"
chapter, with the invitation to the shadows' revel inscribed on falling
autumn leaves, that what she was describing was "Sybilline leaves.")
The collection of essays will be of special interest to all who are interested
in myth and fantasy, and all three of the books to those who love "Mary
Poppins."
This review appeared in the March 1992 Mythprint; P.L. Travers sent
a correction, in a letter printed in the Aug/Sept 1992 Mythprint:
in "The Interview" the mother's feeling was not anger, but grief
at her recent widowhood. I am reprinting the review now in memory of P.L.
Travers, August 9, 1899-April 23, 1996.
[And having mentioned E H. Shepard, A. A. Milne's illustrator in it, I also
want to make note of the death of Christopher Robin Milne, 1920-April 20,
1996, the original of Christopher Robin. After reading the obituary notice
in the paper, I found all that day I had a tune running through my head.
It took me some time to realize what I was humming --it was:
Christopher Robin, good-bye,
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends -
I mean all your friend
Send -
(Very awkward, this, it keeps going wrong)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love
END,
He seems to have been gracious in life about the difficulties of being
forever a small boy to readers, so I suppose he wouldn't have minded too
much that death can't free him from the Enchanted Place any more than growing
up did. --RB]
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