Fall of Door into Poppins

[maribou]

The Door Into Summer, by Robert A. Heinlein
On the one hand, there are certain things that RAH does that drive me nuts, and those things are indubitably in evidence here. On the other hand, I love the cat parts and it made me laugh and the man was so damn inventive (and good at infodumping). Not my favorite of his, but I'm still glad I finally read it.
(25/250)

Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers (reread)
I meant to have this as my by-the-bed comfort book for a while, but I love it so much (I don't even know how many times I reread it as a child) that I finished off the last 3/4 of it in one sitting this morning. I haven't read it since I was too young to cringe at some of the things that made me cringe this time round, but overall it held up admirably. I love how matter-of-fact its strangenesses are.
(26/250)

Fall of Knight, by Peter David
Fluffy finale (I think) of a 'return of Arthur' trilogy. I very much enjoyed this, but in the way I enjoy, say, Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels. It was exciting and made me chuckle and gave moral satisfaction. Solid journeyman work.
(27/250)

Comments

[whapnoggin.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, what makes you cringe about the Poppins?

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I thought it was an uncomfortable book, personally: I thought MP herself was borderline abusive.

[maribou]

See, I always thought of MP as more a 'force of nature' than a parenting model. She was dangerous and could be cruel and that was one part of what made her exciting when I was a kid - she was truly unpredictable, I suppose sort of 'not a tame lion'. I was interested to read that Travers was actually hooked up with the whole Yeats set, in Ireland; I hadn't known that before but it sort of fits, rather than being surprising.

[whapnoggin.livejournal.com]

Travers has a piece somewhere called "How Mary Poppins Found Me"; I think the title is sort of suggestive.

[maribou]

Well, for one thing, there's an entire scene where they go around the world due to a magic compass, and when they go 'south' they are transported to an Africa (I think it is Africa, and not the American south) where the inhabitants conform to embarrassing racial stereotypes of African-Americans. And the children are referred to as pickaninnies. Although I just googled it and it seems like people were actually offended enough by that bit *at the time* that she herself rewrote it later - the edition I have is a modern reprint so I'm sort of surprised they didn't use the revised version.

There were a few less blatant things but I didn't really mind them.

[whapnoggin.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see.

I myself am more familiar with one of the later Poppins, so I didn't recall that particular episode.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Door Into Summer is my favorite Heinlein book. I like its simplicity (if you can call all the time-travel simple) and its message. It had so much less of what drives *me* nuts about him. I can't bring myself to read anything but his books for kids, anymore, and not even all of them.

[maribou]

I really did like it. Parts of it were *wonderful*. But the whole thing with the evil fiancee and the underlying implication that the only women you can trust are either a) pre-pubescent children when you get to know them, b) someone else's wife, or c) elderly? IT DRIVES ME NUTS. I was hoping that particular set of assumptions wasn't actually in this one.

[garretfw.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm Garret, a friend of Anna's. And I am thrilled to meet someone who likes Mary Poppins. And your discussion above is right. She is abusive. She brings both magic and evil into the Banks household. For me, the best chapter in MP is Bad Tuesday. Jane is fighting so hard to stay a girl and not go into the treacherous land where women live. And in MP Comes Back, The New One where Annabel tells the story of her birth to a neighborhood starling, Travers out does herself. When I had to give a talk to a bunch of librarian in California, I went on and on and on about MP. I'm sure they thought I was insane. But the books are lovely. Thanks for posting about them.

[maribou]

Thanks for commenting! After rereading this one, I'm quite excited to reread the others - I think Bad Tuesday is in MP Comes Back, isn't it? My favorite chapter in this one is the one where it's her birthday and they meet all the animals at the zoo, including the cobra ...

And let me take this chance to say that I *love* your books, have read four of them and shall be reading the new one as soon as I am off my lenten library probation.

[maribou]

Oh, never mind, I know where Bad Tuesday comes in now. I'm so bad with titles of things.

[garretfw.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one is great. And how MP yells at them for daring to ask her if she has been in the zoo. As I said, I could go on all day. That is very kind of you to say about my books. And Lent! You know I used to give up swearing every year, but I mostly just wound up saying darn all the time and it made me sound retarded. I hope you're having an okay Monday. best, Garret.