Book Review - Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Published by: Everyman's Library
Publication Date: 1908
Format: Hardcover, 256 Pages
To Buy
The Wind in the Willows has always been odd to me. There's a disconnect between the animals being occasionally very animal like and then occasionally being anthropomorphic with Toad and his car. Unlike many of my mother's other favorite books she never read The Wind in the Willows to me, just bought me a lovely slipcased edition and expected me to read it on my own, which I don't think I did until I was in my twenties. Therefore I think I was too old to gloss over the more annoying characteristics of Toad and suspend disbelief. The result of this is I have been drawn to the art more than to the story, something that helped enable my mom's love of buying beautiful editions of all her favorite books. There's our edition illustrated by Michael Hague, a little cartoonish but nice, the newer Robert Ingpen edition, the anniversary Ernest H. Shephard edition, cohort of A.A. Milne, my slipcased edition illustrated by Inga Moore, Everyman's Library's Arthur Rackham edition, and favorite of all, the Charles van Sandwyk edition. Charles van Sandwyk is a Canadian artist whom everyone should know. He has the technique of Rackham but there's more richness and humor than Rackham was ever able to capture. Sadly this edition during various moves has been misplaced. So the least we can do to honor my mother is buy myself, buy yourself, this edition and try to suspend disbelief and go along for a ride with Mr. Toad.
Emma lives a very cloistered life in Surrey. The fictional town of Highbury and her home of Hartfield are her entire world. A trip to Mr. Knightly's house is a big to-do. It's literally a half a mile away from Hartfield and Mr. Knightly visits Emma and her father daily and yet she hasn't been to Donwell Abbey in over two years! With these locations being in a small fixed sphere and fictional you might think that there's no way to "play the tourist" for Emma, but you'd be wrong. Because there is Box Hill! Box Hill is a very real place and if you think visiting Donwell Abbey is a big endeavor, just think about what going to an actual tourist site means for Emma? But it's just not the fact that Emma gets to see a glimpse of the wider world which makes Box Hill so important, it's that it's during this trip that everything comes to a head narratively speaking. During this trip Jane Fairfax decides to leave Highbury, Mr. Knightly gives up hope of winning Emma because of the display her and Frank Churchill put on, but most importantly this is where Knightly gives his "badly done Emma" smack down which makes her start to reflect inwardly and finally grow into the woman who would marry Mr. Knightly. Box Hill doesn't just command gloriously epic views of Surrey, it's an epic place psychologically for all our characters. Seriously, Box Hill is the linchpin of Emma. 
And while the excursion for our beloved characters mights not have gone to plan, that doesn't mean you should skip this destination spot which is 
