Literary Pilgrimage: Betsy-Tacy Connections

Most of my friends know that of all the books ever written in the history of the world, my most beloved are the Betsy-Tacy books of Minnesota author Maud Hart Lovelace. The books take the characters of Betsy and Tacy (based on the author and her real-life best friend), from their initial meeting at Betsy's fifth birthday party through to Betsy's Wedding. Unlike many series that trace the development of a character from early childhood to adulthood, there is no falling off in appeal as Betsy ages. Fans of the ten-book series adore the grown-up Betsy books every bit as much as they enjoy little-girl Betsy, in some cases even more.

The penultimate title is Betsy and the Great World, in which Betsy spends much of a year in Europe on the eve of the First World War: Munich, Venice, Paris, and London. So as I was leading my students on our Enchanted Spaces tour of children's literature sites in London and Paris, I snuck away for my own private moments revisiting Betsy Ray's journey a century ago.

In London Betsy stays in Mrs. Heaton's boarding house on Taviton Street. So I found Taviton Street on my map (note: not app!) and headed out to locate Betsy's London dwelling.

Mrs. Heaton's is "one of  a row of attached houses, all tall and thin with neat door plates, bells, and knockers." I suspect the houses there now are a result of postwar rebuilding, but tall and thin they are.

The house "overlooked a green square," and I walked through that green square. And what a lovely green square it was.

I also made sure to worship at Westminster Abbey as Betsy does: "She attended church every Sunday in Westminster Abbey. 'Why not?' she defended herself at the storied portal. 'That's what it's meant for.' You soaked in more of the dear gray old place, kneeling in the candlelight, than you did walking around with a guidebook." I sought out an Evensong service, glorying in the boys' choir's angelic voices and glad that I was praying there rather than clicking away with my camera after paying the hefty admission fee for tourists; worshippers are admitted free (but any worshipper who whips out a cell phone - which was NOT me - is scolded instantly).

In Paris, Betsy and I both visited Victor Hugo in the Pantheon and the Venus de Milo in the Louvre.

 "'I never dreamed she would be so beautiful,' she said to Miss Wilson. "I never expect to like famous things. But I guess they're famous because they give everybody this wonderful feeling.'"

I was surprised, though, that Betsy doesn't mention seeing the original of the Winged Victory, given her younger self's thrill at a reproduction of it in Deep Valley's Melbourn Hotel, which inspires her story, "Flossie's Accident," about another headless girl who loses her head in a bobsled accident but goes on to have various subsequent tragic and romantic adventures (!).

 Betsy visits the statue of Henri Quatre on the Pont Neuf, making her own literary pilgrimage in the footsteps of her favorite character, Paragot from the 1906 novel The Beloved Vagabond by William John Locke. At a crucial juncture in his life, Paragot asks advice of the statue and gets, from the king's gesturing arm, an answer, that he should go to the Gare de Lyon. Betsy asks Henri Quatre for advice about how she can reconcile with her estranged boyfriend Joe, and gets, indirectly, her own answer, too. (The next title in the series, after all, is Betsy's Wedding.) I so wished I had some crucial life topic on which I could solicit Henri's advice, but I really didn't, so I just returned his wave and said "Au revoir."

Betsy's stay in Paris culminates in "one good bat" when she and her chaperone, Miss Wilson, are taken out for a decadent dinner at the Ritz by the wealthy American author Mrs. Main-Whittaker, whom Betsy met on her ship voyage at the start of the book and encounters in Paris at the American Express office.

On my last day in Paris I took myself on my own "bat" and treated myself to decadent hot chocolate at elegant Angelina's on the Rue de Rivoli, even though, unlike Mrs. Main-Whittaker, I hadn't just "had a check for royalties big enough to float a bond issue."

My friend Dawn had told me this was the best hot chocolate in Paris, and it was indeed delicious. But it was even more delicious as I imagined sipping it in the company of Betsy Ray in the summer of 1914.

Literary Pilgrimage: Roald Dahl

Confession time: I've never liked the children's books of Roald Dahl. With the exception of The BFG, which did win me over with its sweet friendship between Sophie and her Big Friendly Giant, the other titles I've read seemed unpleasantly exaggerated and frankly mean-spirited in many ways (glorying in the depiction of nasty people receiving nasty consequences for their nasty behavior). But he's such an enormously popular recent British author, second only in popularity to J. K. Rowling, that a visit to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre seemed an important part of our Enchanted Spaces travel itinerary.

The museum is situated in the charming village of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, about an hour's drive from London. It wasn't open yet when we arrived, so we set off on the lovely walking tour that veteran researcher Tiffany found for us online.

We entered the small public library where Matilda, in the book of the same name, would have come to get her library books. The children's room is now named "Matilda's Library."

 Across the street is the post office where Dahl would receive his staggering volume of fan mail, prompting him to write this poem:

Dear children, far across the sea,
How good of you to write to me.
I love to read the things you say
When you are miles and miles away.
Young people and I think I'm right
Are nicer when they're out of sight.

The nearby Crown House was the inspiration for Sophie's "norphanage":

The museum itself is small but delightful. Even the trash cans are delightful!

Best was Dahl's "writing hut," with its oversized shabby armchair and special writing desk he designed for himself to alleviate the constant pain he experienced from injuries sustained in a crash when he served as a RAF pilot.

The Twit Cafe served themed foods from the books such as this Whizzpopper, which, yes, I ordered and greatly enjoyed.

A short walk from the town led up to the church where Dahl is buried, with large Big Friendly Giant-sized footsteps leading to his grave:

The day left me with a fondness for Dahl that I hadn't expected (helped also by the excellent West End production of Matilda the Musical that we saw on the trip, enjoying analyzing the different choices made in film versus stage adaptations of the book).

I came away thinking that while those who love an author set off on pilgrimages to follow in his footsteps, pilgrimage can also work in reverse: following in someone's footsteps can lead to, if not love, at least a certain affection - here, for an injured, curmudgeonly man who sat daily in his writing hut scribbling curmudgeonly stories that generations of children have adored.

Literary Pilgrimage: Alice

On our day trip from London to Oxford, we went in search of a little girl who fell down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. Well, we went in search of the shy, stammering mathematician at Christ Church College who formed a warm friendship with the three young daughters of Dean Henry Liddell: the middle one was named Alice. A devotee of the new art form of photography, he also photographed the girls. Here, Alice posing as "The Beggar Maid."

On the "golden afternoon" of July 4, 1862, Charles Dodgson, who wrote witty verse under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, took the Liddell girls on a boat ride on the Thames. As they drifted along the river, he told them the story of Alice's adventures "underground." Alice begged him to write it down for her, and he did, giving her a handwritten copy of the story, with his own illustrations, for Christmas, 1864. It was then expanded and published with the illustrations by John Tenniel (Alice now blond instead of brunette) in 1865, under the title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The students and I saw the continuing 150th anniversary exhibit of Alice at the British Library, with original manuscripts of both editions on display.

At Oxford we toured Christ Church College:

The grand staircase and great hall have a non-accidental resemblance to Hogwarts:

Here is the quad where lifelong bachelor Dodgson had his rooms (it was a condition of his academic appointment that he remain unmarried).

Later in the day I also remembered C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien when I treated myself to hot mulled wine at the Eagle and Child pub where they met together every Tuesday with their fellow Inklings for decades.

But it was this moment of the day that meant the most to me, when I wandered alone down to the river, in the fading glow of this wintry afternoon, and remembered the summer afternoon boat ride where the story began.

Literary Pilgrimage: Harry Potter

Even though my students were wild with excitement about our visit to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter film studios west of London, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. I thought it would all feel fake, over-hyped, crassly commercial.

I was wrong.

It was magical. And really doubly magical, because to the magic of Harry Potter was added the magic of film-making: magic squared.

When our tour bus pulled up into the parking lot, I wasn't reassured.

But from the moment we stepped in, the magic began. Before we even entered the tour proper, here it was, Harry's cupboard under the stairs.

And once we did enter, the door to the Great Hall of Hogwarts opened for us by a little girl in attendance who happened to have a birthday that day, there we were, in that long room flanked by tables groaning under the (plastic, but so real-looking) holiday feast.

Our tour was hosted, via video welcome, by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, sharing stories of how they had grown up over a period of ten years on these sets together. Already, I felt a lump forming in my throat. I've decided that there is little that gets me teary-eyed faster than evidence of the sheer passage of time: how young they looked then! how much older they look now!

The tour was so well designed, with the chance to stand before sets of exactly the locales we most yearned to inhabit.

The cozy Griffindor common room, decorated for Christmas:

Dumbledore's office.

The Weasleys' homey burrow, where a sweater magically knit itself as a knife magically chopped carrots for dinner.

Throughout there was abundant evidence of the extraordinary care and attention to detail that had gone into every set, prop, and costume, to recreate this beloved world for millions of fans across the globe.

We rounded a corner, and there was the Hogwarts Express, ready for us to board.

In the car we could walk through, each railway compartment represented one of Harry's years at Hogwarts, the seats strewn with whatever items he, Ron, and Hermione might have left behind.

After a stop for lunch in the cafeteria, where butter beer was for sale (tasting very like cream soda), we went outside for a look at Privet Drive

and the home of Harry's parents:

The exhibits on the last third of the tour were perhaps the most meaningful: a close look at how the magical creatures were created for the film through elaborate makeup and use of prosthetics on live actors or fashioning of birds and animals operated through remote control machinery. We saw the detailed architectural drawings for each set, including the white card models made of them. Oh, the extraordinary effort made by thousands of talented behind-the-scenes artists for so many years.

And then, in the final room, there it was : an enormous model of Hogwarts (large enough that perhaps fifty of us could have formed a ring surrounding it) used for many shots in the film.

As we stood there, the soaring score from the films played. Some students wept. We all lingered for as long as we could, hating to leave Hogwarts behind to buy our Ravenclaw sweatshirts and chocolate frogs in the gift shop.

We also had a chance on other days to visit the actual King's Cross Station where Harry departs for Hogwarts on Platform 9 3/4. Although those scenes were filmed in the next door and much more architecturally gorgeous St. Pancras Station, King's Cross now has its own replica of the famous platform:

In our "debriefing" session in class yesterday, where we shared which moments of our "Enchanted Spaces" trip had been most enchanted for us, one student cited approaching Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. To her, it felt more "real" than the platform at the film studios. Of course, they are in a sense equally fake. But also equally real. The very day we visited the Harry Potter studios, Alan Rickman died, the actor who played Snape in the series. Students who made their journey to Platform 9 3/4 later in the week reported that it was heaped with flowers left by grieving fans.

It that isn't real, what is? I'll give the last words to J. K. Rowling, from this inscription posted at the entrance of the studio tour:

Few authors have made us want to listen as long and as hard as she has.

Literary Pilgrimage: The Hundred Acre Wood

I'm back from my two weeks of adventures abroad co-teaching my Enchanted Spaces winter term course for DePauw. So expect my next few posts to be sharing installments of my magical literary pilgrimage.

Of all the days on the trip, the one that meant the most to me was visiting the actual forest where A. A. Milne's young son would set off for his imaginary adventures with his real-life stuffed animals: Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo. The Milnes acquired Cotchford Farm in East Sussex as a holiday home in 1925, when their only child, Christopher Robin, was five years old. It was in nearby Ashdown Forest that Milne set the bedtime stories he told Christopher Robin and his faithful bear, Pooh, every night. So it was to Ashdown Forest that we headed for our visit to the Hundred Acre Wood.

The forest is completely unspoiled, "unimproved," uncommercialized, and, on the day we visited, very muddy. There is a small, charming Pooh's Corner gift shop in the nearby village, but the forest itself wears its fame lightly. There is one sign pointing the way to the Poohsticks bridge; there is a plaque in Milne's honor at the top of the forest. But there are no recreations of the houses of the animal characters, except for an Eeyore house here and here, made by visitors.

The twenty-four students trooped along to the bridge to play Poohsticks: the game that involves dropping sticks from one side of the bridge and then looking over the other side to see which stick emerges first as the winner. I had read in a guidebook that it isn't respectful to the site to denude it of every available stick, so I brought sticks with me from the DePauw campus in Indiana, the sticks I'm clutching here.

Our guide, Simon, asked where I had gotten the sticks, and when I told him "Indiana," he was flabbergasted. "You're pulling my leg!" "You have to be kidding!" "Really?" I guess we were a little more zealous than most of his visitors.

And so we played, and I hope it isn't bragging too much to inform you that in the round I entered, my stick did win. (Fatter sticks tended to prove victorious). You can't see my stick here, so you'll have to take my word for it.)

Our next stop was Gills Lap, Galleons Lap in The House at Pooh Corner, the very top of the forest. 
There we peered into the heffalump trap (my colleague Tiffany's daughter, Rebecca, pictured here). 

And there we entered, with hushed voices, the Enchanted Place, where Christopher Robin says goodbye to Pooh at the end of the second book: 

Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out "Pooh!" 
 "Yes?" said Pooh.
 "When I'm--when-- Pooh!" 
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
 "I'm not going to do Nothing any more." 
"Never again?" 
 "Well, not so much. They don't let you."
 Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again. 
"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully. 
 "Pooh, when I'm--you know--when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?"
 "Just Me?"
 "Yes, Pooh." 
 "Will you be here too?"
 "Yes, Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be, Pooh." 
"That's good," said Pooh. 
 "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." 
 Pooh thought for a little.  "How old shall I be then?"
 "Ninety-nine."
 Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said.
 Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw. "Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I--if I'm not quite" he stopped and tried again --"Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?" 
 "Understand what?" 
 "Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"
 "Where?" said Pooh. 
 "Anywhere," said Christopher Robin. 
 So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

I stayed behind after the others left, wept a few tears for my own lost childhood, and for the beauty of this scene and its lasting power. I took one pine cone with me, as Simon had said we could.

And then I said my goodbye to the Enchanted Place, and we were off to the seventeenth-century Gallipot Inn in Hartfield where we warmed ourselves by the open fireplace and ate platters of dripping cheese toasties, and remembered a boy and his bear, in the forest together forever.

Enchanted Spaces

Today was the first day of the winter term study abroad class I'm co-teaching for DePauw with my brilliant librarian friend Tiffany Hebb, who just might be the world's most organized person (and also a person who maximizes joy at every opportunity). She's the one who masterminded the whole scheme a year ago and emailed to ask if I'd like to join her in teaching a course that would involve taking university students to Europe to explore the origins of and inspirations for classic children's book texts. Why, yes, I would! And so together we put together the course: "Enchanted Spaces and Protected Places: Children's Literature Sites in London, Oxford, and Paris."

Today we opened the course with general readings on place in literature: Eudora Welty's classic piece "Place in Fiction" and another essay called "Geography Lessons" by Leonard Kriegel. Welty writes, "Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable as art, if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else." She goes on to say that "place can focus the gigantic, voracious eye of genius and bring its gaze to point." Kriegel notes that literary geography "has less to do with the actual shape place assumes in the mind than it does with how the idea of place feeds the imagination." 

After discussing Welty and Kriegel's insights, we had an outing to the Putnam County Public Library, a mere block away from our campus building, and pored over a score or more of picture books set in London and Paris (many more in the latter than in the former, itself fodder for discussion). We looked at the ways in which these books create a landscape of the imagination for young readers.

Our focal texts for the course are Alice in Wonderland, the two Pooh books of A. A. Milne, Harry Potter (clearly the students' favorite), Roald Dahl's Matilda (chosen as our representative Dahl text as we'll be seeing the musical of Matilda in London), Brian Selznick's dazzlingly innovative The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the iconic film The Red Balloon, and of course Madeline, with its twelve little girls roaming around Paris in two straight lines. We'll discuss these together over the next two full days, drawing on some of the extensive scholarly literature on each, especially literature examining the role of place.

Then, on Friday, we fly to London. A week later we'll take the train to Paris. A week after that we'll fly back to Indiana to process what we've seen. The students will will write a final analytic paper for the course, or perhaps take the option of creating their own children's story set in these fabled places. They'll also give a presentation on their adventures to Greencastle children and their families at the public library.

And I'll be able to say, well, THERE was a lifelong dream now come true.

The Only Resolution I'm Making This Year

Tomorrow, before dawn, I start driving to Indiana to teach one more semester at lovely little DePauw University, where I've taught on and off now for the past five years (2011-12, 2012-13, Spring 2015, and now Spring 2016). I love it there so much, but it's always wrenching to tear myself away from my happy life in Colorado for months at a time, and then tear myself from my happy life in Indiana when it's time to return home.

But this time I'm leaving with even more heartache than usual. This time it's harder to leave home, as now I have a beloved little almost-two-year-old granddaughter, and the two of us are desperately attached to each other. And this time Indiana feels a bit more daunting than usual. In the past I went as the Robert and Carolyn Distinguished Visiting Professor of Ethics, a position that had a generous salary and light teaching load so the the visitor could immerse herself fully in the intellectual and creative life of the university. But after five full semesters of being a pampered visitor, it's time for someone else to have a turn; the whole point of a visiting professorship is to bring visitors to campus. So this time I'm a lowly adjunct, paid per course, teaching three courses, two of which I've never taught before, and teaching five days a week, which I've never done before in my academic career. Will I even have time to attend all the fascinating lectures and enthralling concerts that are the reason I've so loved my time at DePauw?

Heartsick or not, I'm leaving tomorrow. So this is the only resolution I'm making this year:

I'm going to love every minute of my time at DePauw as fiercely and fully as I can. And when I come back to Colorado come May, I'm going to love every minute of my time here in the same way.

That's it. I'm just going to love my life, wherever I'm living it.

I'm going to have fun in the car tomorrow. I have a David Sedaris collection of comic essays to listen to, and NPR on the radio, and I just bought a little Blue Tooth thing so that I can talk on my cellphone, hands free. So I can catch up with old and dear friends as the miles roll past. I drive on 36, not I-70, along the northern edge of Kansas, where the highway is just one lane in each direction, and the small towns of American's Heartland are fifty miles apart. I'll stop for lunch at some local eatery, ditto for dinner. I'll stop for the night when I'm tired of driving. The weather looks good for the entire thousand-plus-mile journey.

My only task for the next two days: drive, and love the driving.