Friendship and place

Alan Jacobs discovered The Wind in the Willows as an adult. Me, too. Today, on his blog, he republishes an essay that originally appeared in 2009. I've quoted from it before. Jacobs:

If we must claim that The Wind in the Willows is about something, I would say that it’s mostly about the inter-animating powers of friendship and place. Ratty loves the river, but he loves it more when he can show it to Mole. Ratty has known all along that “there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,” but he chants this well-worn fact over and over, dreamily, because in sharing the experience with the novice Mole he finds it coming fully alive to himself once more. Badger’s home is all the more delightful as a refuge from the cold because it is Badger’s home, not just some generic warm spot. Badger’s gruff hospitality allows all sorts of creatures to come and go as they will. And Toad Hall becomes more wonderful than ever when it has been saved from the stoats and weasels, and saved by Toad’s faithful friends. Friends give meaning to a place, and the traits of certain places encourage and strengthen the blessings of friendship.

These are great lessons for anyone to learn, or to remember, at any age. And no book shows us these relations so beautifully as The Wind in the Willows. ....

...[F]or Ratty and Mole on the river, or enjoying their sun-illumined picnics, I must have Ernest Shepard, best known as the illustrator of A.A. Milne’s Pooh stories. He catches the joy of the friends, their unadulterated blissful delight in the shape of their little world, as no one else does. ....

And now, for me, it’s back to a reading of the story that I wish I had known in my childhood. (And yet would I have loved it then?) The river holds more than enough excitement, after all, and so does The Wind in the Willows. When Mole asks Ratty about the Wild Wood, he receives just a few broken, reluctant, uninformative sentences. And when he asks about what might be found on the other side of the Wild Wood, he gets only this quite proper rebuke: “‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please.’" (more)

Alan Jacobs, "Beyond the Wild Wood," The Homebound Symphony, August 27, 2024.