Winnie-the-Pooh

I wasn't expecting to use this book for the blog, but I'm so glad I did. A.A. Milne was an absolute treat to read. The inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood are the funniest little characters you will ever meet. They make absolutely no sense half the time, but you can't help loving them. I hope you'll enjoy learning about these iconic characters. There's Rabbit and Piglet and there's Owl, but most of all Winnie-the-Pooh.

     A Brief Synopsis

The story begins with a boy dragging his bear behind him as the bear goes thump thump thump down the stairs. The narrator introduces the boy as Christopher Robin and the bear as Edward Bear, but he is known as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short. The book is filled with stories that the narrator, who is Christopher Robin's father, is telling to his son. The stories are the many adventures that Christopher Robin and his friends have had, although he never quite remembers how the adventure went until he is reminded, to which he says "Oh yes, I remember". They have all sorts of adventures, but I'll only tell you a few.

Many of the adventures may be familiar to you, for unlike other stories we have encountered so far, Disney's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh accurately portrayed a lot of the stories such as Pooh and the Honey Tree. Pooh desperately wants some honey, so he get's Christopher Robin to lend him a balloon so he may float to the top of the tree and hopefully the be

es will believe he's a little black raincloud. There's also the time where Pooh visits Rabbit, eats too much food, and then gets stuck in the front door for a week 'till he was thin again. Or when Piglet meets a Heffalump, and when Eeyore looses is tail, and when Christopher Robin leads an expedition to the North Pole and more. A few of these stories were used in the more recent 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie, and others have been taken from the sequel to Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner. 

Their very last adventure is probably the greatest. One day, it begins to rain and rain and rain. The animals don't quite know what to do. Pooh climbs out of his house and sits on a branch for four days (with honeypots of course) while Piglet, trapped in his home, decides to send out a message in a bottle saying on one side "Help! Piglet (me)" and on the other "It's Piglet. Help, help!". The bottle happens to float by Pooh who decides to take it to Christopher Robin so he can read it, for Pooh is a Bear of Very Little Brain. He uses an empty honeypot as a boat and floats to Christopher Robin's house, which is now more of an island. Unsure of how to get to Piglet, Christopher Robin is stumped. Pooh on the other hand sees an umbrella and decides to use it as a boat. Christopher Robin, shocked and very pleased with Pooh's intelligence, christens it the"Brain of Pooh". They then set out to rescue Piglet, and later Christopher Robin holds a party to celebrate the quick-thinking of Pooh.

     My Thoughts

This was so much fun to read. It was different from the other stories in that it was so scattered. The thought process of all the animals was completely ridiculous, but in an endearing way. Take this conversation, where Pooh is talking to Eeyore:

‘Why, what’s happened to your tail?’ he said in surprise.

‘What has happened to it?’ said Eeyore.

‘It isn’t there!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, either a tail is there or it isn’t there. You can’t make a mistake about it, and yours isn’t there!’

‘Then what is?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Let’s have a look,’ said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that he couldn’t catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, ‘I believe you’re right.’

They speak so cyclically, it's hilarious. I love their skewed views of logic and reason. They're actually very illogical.

Something else I loved about the book was the relationship with the narrator. It reminded me a lot of Peter Pan, where J.M. Barrie referred to himself and his opinions of the story. In the first chapter, the story is practically a conversation between the narrator and Christopher Robin. He even says stuff like "then you said..." and "you decided to...". There were even little portions in italics that were Christopher Robin's comments on what was happening. This direct story to the little boy ended after the first chapter, but the narrator continued to add personal notes about his son and the stories.

This story was such a delight to read. It made me feel like I was visiting an old friend, even though I'd never read it before. So many of us have grown up with the Disney animated Pooh Bear, and for once they have done a great job representing the plot lines of Milne's work. I don't believe, however, that they fully captured the peculiar child-like absurdity of their thought patterns. I do appreciate what they have done to keep true to the story. I love Milne's pleasant, joyful writing-style, and I recommend this book to anyone who wants a quick read on a rainy day.