The Wind in the Willows/The Willows in Winter (1996) Review

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(More customer reviews)When I was very young (about six thousand years ago), our school master used to read to us from Wind in the Willows. The stories had a magical quality and a few weeks ago, as a somewhat older person, I got to wondering whether they would still have that sense of enchantment that held us so captivated all those years ago.
I was NOT disappointed. Toad was just as cantankerous and difficult as ever. Badger, Rat and Mole were just as supportive - just as memorable. Badger is unpredictable but protective (and sometimes mean). Mole is timid and shy. Rat is courageous and romantic. And who could ever forget those dreadful gun-toting weasels, ferrets and stoats glorying in their take-over of Toad Hall? Wind in the Willows is a true masterpiece of allegory with endless moral lessons disguised as a children's story. It is also a lesson in things long-forgotten... the glory of floating noiselessly down a river at dawn, past loosestrife, willowherb, bulrushes and meadowsweet. How many of us have even heard of these meadow plants, never mind seen them. But it doesn't matter, because it evokes nostalgia either for things long-forgotten or for things never-known.
At a child's level, Wind in the Willows is about friendship and about life in an imagined world centered around the river. At a less innocent level, Wind in the Willows draws many parallels with life, though Kenneth Grahame managed to avoid preaching his lessons. Not the least of Graham's parables is that 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall' because Toad is as egotistical and as self-important as they come until being thrown in jail for 'borrowing' a car. After that, it's all downhill for Toad, and it is only thanks to the loyalty of his friends that he regains some of his position in society - though not before learning a little humility first.
Though, at an older age, we pretend to be more sophisticated, at heart we always hold out the hope of a return to innocence and simple adventures. We are still (most of us) perfectly capable of identifying with the animals and the idea, as one reviewer put it, of two school-aged hedgehogs frying ham for a mole and a water rat, in a badger's kitchen does my imagination no harm whatsoever! As for Grahame's choice of phrase (...the "remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England"...) it's almost as poetically attention-grabbing as Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder series.
If you're looking for laser guns and hi-tech wars, W-i-t-W is NOT the book to buy. If you're after something a little more gentle (and a little more intelligent) Wind in the Willows is an outstanding example of a Classic that continues to withstand the test of time.

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In the first of these two animated adaptations, both gently narrated by Vanessa Redgrave, Moley, Mr. Toad, and the rest of the right, proper riverbank battalion are portrayed tastefully, wittily, and with charm by the bucketsful. True to the tale, Mole abandons his modest home in favor of an apprenticeship on the ways of the river alongside knowledgeable Rat; Toad's enthusiasm for motorcars earns him a 20-year sentence; and young Portly the otter goes missing, giving everyone a scare. The lushness of Kenneth Grahame's writing is preserved throughout--those enchanted by the classic kids' story needn't be wary of memory muddling. Next up is the sequel, usually a letdown, but here a thrilling (though less literary) ride. If "The Wind in the Willows" tugs viewers through the river reeds with its graceful, enchanting words, "The Willows in Winter" hurtles them along with its bumpy adventures, all linked to the restless, irascible Toad. This time, the wily bugger takes to the skies in a search for Moley, who's lost in a river-swelling winter storm. Along the way he loops-the-loop one time too many, sending passenger Ratty tumbling. Then there's the small matter that he swiped the plane he's piloting, an offense punishable by a lengthy prison sentence. Well-connected, formidable Badger bails him out, but a lesson on humility awaits the shifty amphibian back at Toad Hall. In "The Wind in the Willows", Grahame writes, "When I was young, we always had mornings like this." Viewers of all ages who tune in to this two-parter will come away wishing they did, too. "--Tammy La Gorce"

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