Kenneth Grahame
Finished reading 13 oktubre 2004
I was rather disappointed with this book. Remembering how well I enjoyed it in my childhood, it seemed to me now dull and unfocussed, like a poor copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, or Frog and Toad. Of course, the drawings were done in my version by Ernest H Shepard, so that might have explained the Pooh reference.
Though not really. The characters of Wind in the Willows are very similar to the Pooh characters, in that they’re animals wandering around, finding stuff to do. In Wind in the Willows, though, there was a significant comparitve lack of philosophy, metaphor, and excitement (the Toad storyline notwithstanding). The book starts off with individual stories in each chapter, but generally devolves into a continuous story starring Toad, the only character in the book with any real personality.
I guess my main problem with this is that I’m old, and I haven’t read this for quite some years. All those people who have read it regularly from three years to thirty years probably have no such problems with it. I left too much of a gap, it seems, and so lost the magic.
Rating: 3/5