Poop-Poop

I walked into work Monday morning and my boss asks if I saw the Masterpiece Theater production of Wind in the Willows. I had not. I had forgotten it. Oh, Entertainment Weekly. Why have you forsaken me?

Yes, I missed a Wind in the Willows production that featured Bob Hoskins as Badger. Reason alone for self-flagellation or something less dire? Well fortunately for the world at large, Educating Alice is reexamining not only this newest adaptation but also the book itself. I'd somehow never sensed the parallels between the characters mucking about and the British schoolboy tradition so acutely ingrained in the literature. Monica asks, justifiably, whether or not the book is even applicable today. Having grown up at the teat of the Michael Hague version (framed prints remain on the walls of my childhood home, I'll have you know) I've great affection for the text. The bizarre appearance of Pan mid-novel? Just makes the book all the sweeter to me. Plus you can shove the Hague version in the face of Percy Jackson fans and yell, "LOOK! PAN!," and watch them coo. Just don't follow that up with Jitterbug Perfume until they're at least 14.

Tangent. Returning.

If you don't care for random appearances of pagan gods, try the Inga Moore adaptation on for size. Yes, she abridged the text, but maybe in this day and age that's what the book requires. Besides, how can you turn down a cover image like this?

I encourage you to seek out Monica's thoughts on the program, if only to lend your own dulcet tones to her call for opinions on a variety of WITW related-subjects.