Willowland and names seered in marble

October 11, 2022, 3:18 pm , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz leafs through a lyrical masterpiece and comes upon a sudden veil of tears

Every home has its windows, bedrooms, old comfortable chair. And one other thing. A book, a book with no history, no fingerprints. A book that simply appeared at no known date, with no known owner, no known history. Just a book with a known mystery. Over time, it emerges as part of the brickwork and keeps hanging around, on a shelf, on a table, propping up a dicey sofa.

In our place, the book in question is a small blue hardback inscribed with a faded name, possibly Carole or Carl, and dated Sept 1931. It is Wind in the Willows. Was it there when we moved in, forgotten by the previous owner? Was it picked up at a charity shop and ignored? Did someone leave it? By mistake? Through carelessness? Left on a shelf with a disinterested shrug?

After decades, I finally picked it up, convinced it was nothing more than a dusty rambling kids’ story written 114 years back. I immediately applied the 15% rule: obligated to read that fragment before deciding whether to continue or stop the torture of a bad choice.

‘Mr Toad….the deluded terror of the Edwardian country lane…’

Well, wouldn’t you know, Wind in the Willows turned out to be 300 page winner. Fifteen percent in, I just kept on eating it up, gobbling it down. It is an elegant lyrical fable with Mr Toad, the deluded terror in the motorcar, a wise Mr Badger and a faithful Ratty (actually a water vole) all paddling up rivers, getting lost in The Wild Woods, escaping the long arm of the law and, crucially, eating large lunches washed down with Old Burton ale.

The story evolved from tales the author Kenneth Grahame told his little boy. But after its 1908 publication Grahame never hit the heights again. But I’m sure he would have been delighted to find that Wind in the Willows is still devoured, re imagined, bought, re read, loved as a story that mixes fantasy, lyrical essays on the English countryside, a dip into magic realism, and sharp comments on the vagaries of how we live our lives, whether wisely, a la Mr Badger, or preposterously like Mr Toad.

Who, I wonder, has not zipped through the tales without thinking: ’I know a Mr Toad, a Mr Badger, A Wayfaring Rat’. So the book still rings true. And it’s been re imagined innumerable times since its 1908 publication and linked with a host of big names: Alan Bennett, Judy Collins, Basil Rathbone, Guillermo del Toro, Eric Idle….

And, specifically, the title of the dreamlike Chapter Seven, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was lifted by Pink Floyd for its first album, then by Van Morrison and then The Waterboys. Its magic lyricism resonates even today.

For instance, this autumn a family excursion takes me to New York. I’m directed to Governor’s Island, a tiny speck of greenery swimming quietly where the Hudson River sweeps into Upper New York Bay, just south of Manhattan’s southern tip.

To the west is the welcoming lamp of The Statue of Liberty, the hopeful gates of Ellis Island and, surprisingly, the skyscrapers of a re-worked Jersey City.

But across the island’s green swards stands the Big One, the lower Mahattan skyline.

The island (it’s technically a city park) is a bucolic dot of heaven, buzzed overhead by helicopters, surrounded by the churn of busy ferries, speedy launches and barges and softened by quiet sailboats, all overseen by an other world of the jaggy teeth of tall buildings looming behind the island’s parklands and paths, beyond the walkers, the kids, the weekend bicyclists and the families out for the day.

It’s really only a small way back to the city proper into the canyons leading through Wall Street to the site of the Twin Towers disaster. Only a ten minute walk from the dreamy serenity of Governor’s Island to the hard lasting monument to those that died.

A handsome sharp square of marble is centre stage at the site. Its four inner walls are curtained with waterfalls continually tumbling. It’s a veil of tears. The rushing torrent drops into a dark square hole and disappears. The sound of falling water dampens the noise of city traffic and busyness.

Those that were killed are not forgotten. Their names are etched Into the black stone of the memorial’s marble walls. They include that of a young woman ’and her unborn child’ and it never fails, I assume, in making bystanders catch their breath in this solemn place, a place of the dead so close to the lyrical softer other world of Governor’s Island.