Happy 50th Paddington! (and thoughts about anniversaries)

Just a quick note to acknowledge that 50 years ago today that Michael Bond's first book featuring the bear from "darkest Peru" was published. Bond went on to write 13 more books with Paddington, as well as other books for children and adults.

The original Paddington books were illustrated by Peggy Fortnum in black and white, with others, including her niece, adding color. Others provided illustrations for versions of Paddington stories for younger readers, and R.W. Alley illustrated Paddington in the 1990's as well as providing new covers for the original books.

There have been three animated TV series featuring Paddington. The first one from 1975 was different in that Paddington himself was a 3 dimensional character animated with stop-motion, while the backgrounds and other characters were two dimensional. The backgrounds were black and white line drawings. There is a full-length feature film in the works with Paddington done in three dimensional computer animation which will be combined with live action footage.

While not on the same scale of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, with all of the Disney marketing might behind him, you can still find a wide range of Paddington-licensed products, including games, toys and clothes. According to wikipedia, you can find street vendors selling hand-made Paddington Bear finger puppets on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Peru.

You can read more, and keep up with the latest Paddington news on his official website www.paddingtonbear.co.uk.

Fifty years is an impressive amount of time for a character to remain popular, especially if you look at how many characters are created in children's books alone each and every year. For any character to survive in this day and age, they need to have TV or movie exposure as well. A healthy dose of merchandising doesn't hurt either, but it doesn't guarantee longevity either.

I wonder though, when do we recognize the anniversary of the creator's birth (or death) and when do we focus on the creation's first appearance? Or in some cases do we do both? Who is it that decides - descendants, publishers, copyright and trademark holders, fan clubs, official societies, cities where the person was born or lived? My gut feeling is that those who have the most at stake financially, and the greatest opportunity to make money are ultimately the ones who have the incentive and the resources to organize and publicize these types of events.

Do we need to wait until the author or illustrator is dead, or even dead a certain number of years before we start celebrating them instead of the work? Michael Bond is still alive, which could be why the focus is on Paddington. Should we expect Charles Dickens' festivals in 2012 recognizing his 200th birthday? Where there any events around J.R.R. Tolkien's 100th birthday in 1992? Perhaps Tolkien does or did not have the cultural acceptance that traditional children's or non-fantasy authors have, or we needed to wait until The Lord of the Rings was made into movies for him to achieve this iconic status. Maybe anniversary events in general have only taken off in popularity after 1992.

Does it depend on the scope of the author or illustrator's work , meaning if only one of the the author's works has made any lasting impression on our cultures or society we focus on that? Using Paddington as an example again, Bond created other characters, including a guinea pig named Olga da Polga in a series of children's books and Monsieur Pamplemousse in an adult mystery series, who aren't as well known - so perhaps the focus will always be on Paddington. Peter Pan, James M. Barrie's most well-known creation, had a 100th anniversary in 2004 (which is when the play premiered, not the book in 1911), but I haven't heard of anything for Barrie himself. Maybe in 2043 we will have celebrations recognizing 200 years of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, if someone deems Scrooge and company warrant special notice above and beyond Dickens' other works. I guess we will either have to wait and see, or start something ourselves.

Anyway, make yourself a marmalade sandwich and let me know if you know of any rhyme or reason to these celebrations and what you think of these anniversaries in principle.

Changing the World

What book of fiction sold more copies than any other in 1998? Who won the Newberry Award or any of the Hugo Awards in 1978? I doubt many of us could answer these without really trying to think it through or by researching it online. Books that make headlines today, especially fiction, more often not eventually fade from memory (except for those working in libraries and the publishing industry).

A few authors create characters that outlive them for decades and centuries. You could probably find a fair share of people who could recognize Long John Silver, Sherlock Holmes or Pollyanna even though they never actually read Treasure Island ( 1883) by Robert Louis Stevens, any of the 4 novels or 56 short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, or Eleanor H. Porter’s Pollyanna (1913). (It is conceivable I have too much faith in people, now that I think about it and consider some of the participants on The Tonight Show’s Jay Walking segments.)

Some books become regional, national or international forces – which in our day equates to spawning movies, games, and toys, becoming targets for parodies and copy-cat efforts. They may have the positive effect of reinvigorating genres, increasing interest in reading and possibly even helping to foster careers in writing, acting and other story-telling related industries.

Regardless of the media hoopla, or lack there of, around any given book you have probably read a book or two that affected you, changing your life to some degree. There is the motivational poster that says something like “A mind once stretched can no longer return to its original shape.” Fiction can definitely stretch our minds, but not always in ways that are quantifiable. It would be interesting to find out how many people do selected their course of study or their chosen profession because of characters or concepts they encountered in books of fiction.

Novels can change our opinions about issues or cause us to reexamine, shift, or define our perceptions about an issue or principle, but typically these are on small and personal levels. Perhaps while enjoying a book for its story or characters, you learn something new or understand something better. As a trivial example, even though I had never covered mitochondria in any of my classes previously, I was able to correctly answer questions about it a standardized test in high school because I read Madeleine L’Engles’ A Wind in the Door (1973).

Occasionally a work of fiction moves beyond affecting individuals in individual ways, and affects communities and cultures. Their books not only work on a level with plots, settings and characters, but the ideas or concepts worked intentionally or unintentionally into the story, or discussion about those ideas, take on a larger life.

If done well, the story continues to be read even after society has changed because it tells a universal story. More often than not, if an author writes with the sole intention to change people, they don’t. And typically if they do, their book is quickly forgotten after their issue passes from focus and new problems capture the attention of the public.

While you could argue that whenever there is change, other social, political, and economic forces were at work at the same time and that something might have happened without these books, the popularity of the stories themselves can be a catalyst.

I can think of four examples of fictional books that had long-lasting or far-reaching effects.

In the midst of the Industrial Revolution in England, Christmas was becoming less and less a recognized holiday. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) reinvigorated the practices and purposes of Christmas as it is recognized today.

It is said that when Harriet Beecher Stowe met with Abraham Lincoln near the beginning of the Civil War it is said he said something along the lines of “So this is the little lady who made this big war”, referring to her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) is told from the horse’s point of view. One of Black Beauty’s complaints is being subjected to the checkrain – a common practice of the time which forced horses pulling carriages to keep their heads up. Shortly after its publication, the practice was banned and the popularity of this book is attributed to the change.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) resulted in drastically decreased meat sales and consequently the meat packing industry welcomed government regulation to instill confidence in the packaging process – even though Sinclair wanted more, including better conditions and wages for the employees.

We are still faced with many issues, but I can not think of any other books that have these types of effects, although maybe Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) could qualify. Perhaps it is too soon to know the actual, long-term consequences for any published more recently, or maybe books have simply lost this force in our culture and movies or TV have the reach and power that books once had.

I realize my horizons are limited and would love to hear of any others that you are familiar with, or what your thoughts are on this subject.

Cabinet of Wonders: Evil, Incarnate

In Cabinet of Wonders: Evil, Incarnate, Heather McDougal present ideas and illustrations related to how storytellers use negative physical characteristics to represent evil. and what it says about us.

It is not often you can read references to Leonardo da Vinci, Heath Ledger as the Joker, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and Beowulf, as well as works by William Shakespeare, Frank Herbet, Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket, and Charles Dickens among others - all in one discussion.

While you are there, check out some of her previous, facinating posts.

Danny Elfman

(It started taking me forever to complete each post as I was including links for every book, DVD, CD, etc. and my links to the Davis County Library system weren't working so I held off to decide how I wanted to continue. This explains the gap between postings. For the time being I am not going to set up as many links and I hope the posts are still as useful without the links.)

When it comes to music done for movies based on, or inspired by, classic and well known stories, I think you would be hard pressed to find a composer who has done more than Danny Elfman.

His portfolio of movies based on books for which he composed the soundtracks, or at least developed the main themes for, includes:

Scrooged (1988) – an updated version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol
Black Beauty (1994)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) – a decidedly different interpretation of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Planet of the Apes (2001) – which version was even more removed from the Pierre Boulle’s original book than the 1968 version
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Charlotte’s Web (2006)

If you allowed a couple of more contemporary author’s works in to this list, these would also count:

Meet the Robinsons (2007) – based on William Joyce’s children’s book A Day with Wilbur Robinson
Dolores Claiborne (1995) – from a Stephen King novel

Then, if you were to include well known comic book characters, the list grows with:

Batman (1989)
Dick Tracy (1990)
The Flash (1990) – actually a TV series that Elfman did the theme music for
Batman Returns (1992)
Spider-man (2002)
Hulk (2003)
Spider-man 2 (2004)

And while this doesn’t even complete his musicography, he did these movies which are also based on stories that originated in comics – Darkman (1990), Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008).

Edward Scissorhands (1990) and The Corpse Bride (2005), are two movies which could just as easily be included in this list as the first has shades of Frankenstein, and Beauty and the Beast, and the second is loosely based on a Russian-Jewish folktale.

Lastly, if you wanted to stretch this list you could add the theme for The Simpsons TV series (1989+), which after 20 seasons and a movie is on its way to becoming an institution of its own (besides, The Simpsons has probably spoofed more classic and well-known books, movies and fictional characters then any other current series.)

Parallel Stories

I have a brother in-law who collects versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , the original version being A Christmas Carol: In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843) illustrated by John Leech. Several years ago my wife and I gave him Marley's Ghost (2000) by Mark Hazard Osmun (currently out of print) which tells more about Jacob Marley's life and his activities behind the scenes getting the various ghosts involved with Scrooge.

Around that time, I also read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow (1999) which overlaps the award-winning story in Ender's Game (1985), also by Card, but from the character Bean's perspective instead of Ender's.

I have since then encountered several other classic or favorite stories with other books published telling the story from another character's point of view. Most of the time, the stories fill out the background on some of the minor characters, fill in gaps between events or give behind the scene activities, and then possibly carry the story beyond the end of the original - at least in regards to the originally minor characters.

In fact with Card, he has now created an entire Shadow series that continues the story of several of the characters introduced in Ender's Game, helping to bridge Ender's Game with Speaker for the Dead (1986) and other books in the Ender series.

I was aware that for Hamlet (ca 1600) by William Shakespeare, we have the parallel story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) by Tom Stoppard. While I researching this I discovered not one, but two books written with Ophelia as the principal character - Dating Hamlet: Ophelia's Story (2002) by Lisa Fiedler and Ophelia (2006) by Lisa Klein. (Is there something with Lisas and Ophelia?)

Fiedler apparently followed up her Ophelia book with a companion story to Romeo and Juliet (ca 1596) by William Shakespeare titled Romeo's Ex: Rosalind's Story (2006).

For Macbeth (ca 1605) by William Shakespeare, there is Enter Three Witches (2007) by Caroline Cooney.

I wouldn't be surprised if other authors haven't already tackled more of the Bard's work in this way, although there seems to be a recent surge in this type of novel and they seem to be targeted to young adults.

As the movie The Lion King (1994) is draws several plot elements from Shakespeare's Hamlet, perhaps it is not too surprising Disney did a direct-to-video prequel/mid-quel in the vein of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with The Lion King 1 1/2 (2004), showing that Timon and Pumba's lives intersected and inadvertently affect Simba's story before they actually appeared in The Lion King. (Both of these Disney movies are in moratorium at the moment.)

Gregory Maguire wrote Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1996) which is not really a parallel story to the The Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum and originally illustrated by W. W. Denslow, but rather a story telling the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West in an Oz that is an amalgamation of lands, creatures and characters from the other Oz books Baum wrote, with key elements from the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939), but I think it draws on enough of the original story it can be included here.

The last example I have is from the recent vampire novel Twilight (2005) by Stephenie Meyer. This is told from Bella's point of view. Meyer has started book chronicling this story from Edward's perspective which is currently called Midnight Sun. On Meyer's website you can download and read the first chapter by clicking on the links on this page: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/otherprojects_midnightsun.html.

With the exception of the stories by Card and Meyer, the parallel versions were written by a different author. Most of these weren't done as a parody, but rather as a means of examining or enlarging on themes or plots covered or suggested by the original. Most of the time characters developed and grew beyond the scope their appearance in the first work allowed, increasing the depth of the original.

While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a comedy, it stands on its own as it deals with some philosophical issues that the original really couldn't go into. (As does The Lion King 1 1/2, although from what I remember the additional themes it deals with are rather shallow.)

If any of you know of other parallel stories out there, please share them.