Ep 676 - The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode 676: Exploring Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows

Release Date: November 11, 2024
Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Podcast Description: Overdue is a podcast dedicated to discussing the books you've been meaning to read. Each week, Andrew and Craig delve into a new title from their literary backlog, ranging from classic literature to obscure plays and even whimsical children’s books.

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Introduction to the Episode

In Episode 676, titled The Wind in the Willows, hosts Andrew and Craig embark on an in-depth exploration of Kenneth Grahame’s beloved classic. The episode begins with light-hearted banter about the windy ambiance, setting a thematic tone that aligns with the book’s title.

Craig [00:55]: "It's windy. It's windy in here. Do you notice how windy it is?"

Andrew [00:59]: "You see those willows over there? They're dancing."

Author Spotlight: Kenneth Grahame

The hosts provide a comprehensive overview of Kenneth Grahame’s life, emphasizing his Scottish roots and the personal hardships that shaped his writing.

• Early Life: Born in 1859, Grahame faced a difficult childhood after his mother’s death from scarlet fever when he was five. He and his siblings were raised by their maternal grandmother and uncles, while his father eventually relocated to France, distancing himself from the family.
• Education and Career: Aspiring to attend Oxford, Grahame was thwarted by financial constraints, leading him to a long-term career as a bank clerk starting in 1879. This occupation provided him the stability to pursue his passion for writing, albeit without leaving his day job.

Andrew [05:07]: "Kenneth Grahame, born in 1859, died in 1932. A Scottish born British writer. So he's got kind of a difficult childhood..."

• Literary Contributions: Grahame began publishing in periodicals in 1887 and released his first collection, Pagan Papers, in 1893. His subsequent works, including The Golden Age and Dream Days, established his reputation as a writer focused on childhood and pastoral themes.

Delving into The Wind in the Willows

Andrew and Craig dissect the novel’s structure, characters, and overarching themes, providing listeners with both a summary and critical analysis.

Plot Overview

The Wind in the Willows is a charming collection of tales revolving around anthropomorphic animals—primarily Mole, Rat, Badger, and the exuberant Toad. Each character embodies distinct traits that contribute to their adventures and friendships.

• Mole: Represents the everyman, embarking on his first venture outside his subterranean home.
• Rat (Ratty): An otter who loves the river and navigation, embodying loyalty and practicality.
• Badger: The reclusive yet wise protector of the wild wood.
• Toad: The central figure whose obsession with motorcars leads to reckless adventures.

Craig [04:32]: "Some real Jerry Seinfeld type a little bit."

Themes and Analysis

1. Friendship and Loyalty: The bonds between Mole, Ratty, and Badger highlight unwavering support, even as they navigate Toad’s tumultuous behavior.

2. Adventure vs. Stability: Toad’s insatiable desire for adventure disrupts the harmonious lives of his friends, illustrating the tension between the thrill of new experiences and the comfort of the known.

3. Class Structure and Social Mobility: The depiction of Toad, with his aristocratic demeanor and unbridled wealth, juxtaposes with the more modest lives of Mole and Ratty, subtly critiquing British class dynamics.

4. Anthropomorphism: The novel employs a distinctly British approach to anthropomorphism, where animals are dressed in human attire and engage in societal roles, yet retain inherent animalistic traits.

Andrew [15:37]: "Rabbits in waistcoats."

Notable Literary Devices

• Personification: Objects and concepts are imbued with human-like qualities to reflect the characters’ emotions and states of mind.

  Craig [22:38]: "He does not know what he's doing."

• Descriptive Prose: Grahame’s verbose and lyrical language paints a vivid picture of the pastoral setting but may pose comprehension challenges for some readers.

  Craig [20:34]: "The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring cleaning his little home..."

Illustration and Adaptations

The hosts delve into the discrepancies between the book’s narrative and its various illustrations, particularly focusing on the portrayal of animal sizes and their interactions with the human world.

• Early Illustrations: Paul Bransom’s illustrations depict animals in human-like settings, creating a whimsical yet confusing visual narrative.

  Craig [10:16]: "My Kindle edition that I read had the Bransom edition."

• Disney Adaptation: The Disney rendition introduced more standardized anthropomorphism, making characters like Mr. Toad more relatable to modern audiences but diverging from Grahame’s original descriptions.

Craig [28:00]: "Mr. Toad is an addictive enthusiast, they describe him as where he gets very caught up in new fads."

Critical Reflections and Listener Engagement

Andrew and Craig engage in thoughtful critiques of the novel's portrayal of anthropomorphic characters, questioning the logical consistency of their interactions within a technologically advancing world.

• Size and Reality: The inconsistency in animal sizes versus their environment and interactions with humans raises questions about the book’s internal logic.

  Andrew [31:02]: "Do humans exist? Yes."

• Moral Ambiguities: The treatment of animals as both sentient beings and sources of food introduces complex ethical dimensions.

  Craig [36:45]: "No mention of the fact that the otter that we met earlier, like, just chomps on fish all the time."

Memorable Quotes

Throughout the episode, notable quotes from the hosts are highlighted to encapsulate key insights and reflections:

• Craig on Themes:

  "This is what you can imagine that is not about animals at all. It's about four men in Edwardian Britain..."

• Andrew on Characters:

  "Toad is, the Falstaff of the book. He's this very, you know, big comic character."

• Craig on Adaptations:

  "The badger has been watching over this otter cub. And then as soon as he disappears, they forget that they see him."

Conclusion

Andrew and Craig wrap up the episode by reflecting on The Wind in the Willows as a seminal work of children’s literature that continues to resonate due to its rich character dynamics and timeless themes. They encourage listeners to appreciate the blend of adventure and pastoral life depicted in the novel, despite its occasional narrative inconsistencies.

Andrew [62:19]: "Patreon.com overduepod you get access to our Discord and other things..."

The episode concludes with a nod to upcoming book discussions, promising more literary adventures in future episodes.

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Whether you're revisiting The Wind in the Willows or encountering it for the first time, this episode of Overdue offers a thorough and engaging examination of Kenneth Grahame’s classic, enriched by the hosts’ insightful commentary and personal reflections.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name's Andrew.

[Craig]

We've got a wild ride for you this week.

[Andrew]

It's windy. It's windy in here. Do you notice how windy it is?

[Craig]

You see those willows over there? They're dancing. They're dancing.

[Andrew]

This is an episode that we are recording on Monday, November 4th.

[Craig]

Yeah. Here in the US of A.

[Andrew]

And there's a lot of. There's a lot of. There's a lot of electricity in the air.

[Craig]

There's. There's some wind blowing between those willows for sure.

[Andrew]

But we're going to do our. We're just going to talk about the.

[Craig]

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham.

[Andrew]

By Kenneth. Let me see how.

[Craig]

My guess is that it's Graham.

[Andrew]

Kenneth. Yeah, Kenneth Graham. Yeah, you can hit the Graham, like really hard. But I think it's like Kenneth Graham. Is the pronunciation sure. Because he's British then.

[Craig]

Well, he's Scottish. Scottish. Scottish bro.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he's Scottish born and he's. Yes.

[Craig]

And.

[Andrew]

Okay, podcasting. Let's do it. We can do it.

[Craig]

I've never read this book before and I don't think I'd ever seen. If I'd ever seen the Disney cartoon or something, it escapes me. I know it was like adapted for Ichabod and Mr. Toad and I can picture Mr. Ichabod in my brain and I can picture Toad. But that's like it.

[Andrew]

There is like a late golden era slash, early Silver age episode of the Simpsons where Lisa gets sick and she has to do a book report on the Wind in the Willows for school.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

But because she's sick, she gets to play Bart's PlayStation. And so she gets way into playing like a Crash Bandicoot ripoff and doesn't do the assignment. And then she cheats and gets. She goes to Nelson Muntz and gets a. Gets a paper for the. For the Wind in the Willows book report. Gets an A on it. That A is enough to bump the Springfield school District up enough that it can get state funding because they finally got their grades up. And then there's a whole elaborate ruse where everybody in school knows that Lisa cheated, but they really want the money and so they like, have a Fake ceremony where Lisa breaks down and announces that she cheated. And then the real like comptroller comes in and Lisa's gone already. And they're like, yeah, we, we earned this. We get this money and it's just. It's funny. I thought that was funny. It's a funny episode.

[Craig]

I had totally forgotten that it was a lie Spirals out of control episode. I do remember it's about the wind.

[Andrew]

In the willows, though.

[Craig]

Wind in the willows? Yeah. Had you ever read this book, Andrew?

[Andrew]

No, no, no, no. I'm telling you that my most direct exposure to it is the Simpsons episode where Lisa does. Gets. Lisa cheats to do a book report about it.

[Craig]

Okay, great.

[Andrew]

I feel like I've seen illustrations of like a toad in like a cap driving a car or something, you know?

[Craig]

Yes, that. Well, that is a big part of this book. It's not a very big book, but it is a collection of. Of tales of a couple of call them animals that are. Let's call them British. And they have some adventures and they have some friendships and it's really a collection of like bedtime stories. Like if you. There, there is a plot in as much as Mr. Toad likes cars and it gets him into trouble, There are.

[Andrew]

Some real Jerry Seinfeld type a little bit.

[Craig]

There are, there are chapters that are more kind of ruminations for individual characters about certain feelings that they are having about themselves and the world around them. But other than that, it's just kind of a story about some nice animals that it's nice to meet. And I'm. I enjoyed reading it though. I do. I don't know. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions.

[Andrew]

We're going to talk about those.

[Craig]

I bet we are going to talk about those. Can we talk about Mr. Graham first?

[Andrew]

Yes. Kenneth Graham, born in 1859, died in 1932. A Scottish born British writer. So he's got kind of a difficult childhood. His mother died of scarlet fever when he was five. He and his three siblings then lived with their maternal grandmother and some uncles while their dad kind of spiraled. He made an attempt to like be in their lives for a little bit after this, but eventually he just moves to France and is totally out of the picture.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Graham wants to attend Oxford, but his uncle wouldn't pay for it. So he begins a career as a bank clerk in 1879 that would continue for 30 years. He had, he had the free time here to pursue writing, which he initially began doing in bank ledgers at work, which Is.

[Craig]

Oh, that's cool.

[Andrew]

Like, that's how I started my writing career, too. Was writing things on the side when I was supposed to be on the clock at the other job.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So, like, I get it. I bet. I bet a lot of people have started writing careers like this. In 1887, he starts submitting his work to periodicals, and he's first published in St. James's Gazette. In 1888, he becomes a regular contributor to the national observer and its editor, William Ernest Henley, encourages him to submit the collection that would be published as Pagan Papers. He submits this in. In 1893. The pagan papers. This is a title that maybe sounds a little bit misleading. It's just a story, Short story collection. But, yeah, Wind in the Willows, actually. So that comes out in 1908. 1908. It's actually his last published work. So the Pagan Papers comes out in 1894. That's short stories. The Golden Age comes out in 1895. This is a collection of reminiscences of childhood that kind of establishes his reputation as. As a writer about, like, childhood children.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

He's got a book called the Headswoman that comes out in 1898, and it's a satire about women's suffrage. A summary of it I read on Indie Pubs says that it, quote, seems to ask what equality would look like for women in a system dependent upon its opposite. So I assume it's not, like, anti. Subra.

[Craig]

I said a little. Yeah, I'm struggling to really pin that one down, actually.

[Andrew]

The word seems is doing a lot of work in that. In that summary. So, yeah, jury's out on that one. And then Another book in 1898 called Dream Days, which is kind of a continuation of Golden Age. This has a children's story in it called the Reluctant Dragon, which is another one of his. His bigger ones.

[Craig]

Oh, okay. I think I've heard that title before. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's about a dragon who, like, doesn't want to be a typical villain dragon.

[Craig]

Neat.

[Andrew]

Kind of turning good to know that.

[Craig]

Trope is over a century old. I love it. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But, yeah, the Golden Age. So that is kind of establishes him as a. Like, he. He is well reviewed from the moment that he starts writing stuff. But that. That's kind of the book that his reputation derives from. He does continue working at the bank for just, like, years and years. Like, he does not quit his day job to be a writer, but he is in demand. He is successful.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

He meets and marries elspeth Thompson in 1897. They have one. So Alistair, who was born premature, he had lots of health problems during his life. He died, like, kind of tragically.

[Craig]

Yep, yep.

[Andrew]

Pretty young as a young man. Yeah. And Graham would tell Alistair stories about a mole, a beaver, a water rat, a toad. These animal stories are. Are the genesis of Wind in the Willows and kind of where that comes from. He retires from the bank in 1908, a few months before Wind in the Willows comes out. It's not super well reviewed at the time because reviewers kind of wanted it to be more in the vein of Golden Age and Dream Days. Like, more. More like memoir, reminiscency.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And they also think that kids wouldn't think it was fun enough, but it did. It did sell really well. Prominent fans at the time included Christopher Robin Milne and Teddy Roosevelt.

[Craig]

Yes, I did see prominent.

[Andrew]

Prominent like animal lover Teddy Roosevelt and.

[Craig]

Prominent animal lover Christopher Robin as well. Yeah, I did see the. A.A. milne adapted it into a. Adapted some of the Mr. Toad story into a play.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there are a lot of poo links. Like, the most. It's not the first person who illustrated it, but, like, the most famous illustrator of it is E. H Shepard, who illustrated a 1931 edition, and he was the illustrator for Winnie the Pooh, who drew the original map of the 100 acre wood. Like, these stories are kind of intertwined in that way.

[Craig]

And.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he. Yeah, that's pretty much what I've got on Graham. When he. After he dies, he leaves the proceeds from his works to the Bodleian Library, which is also where his archives are. So that's his deal.

[Craig]

Yeah, I saw that the first illustrations were by Paul Bransom, I think was one of the first editions.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the first, like, because the first edition had, like. Yeah, yeah. Like, no. No internal illustrations, but it was illustrated some on the COVID and. Yeah, I saw that, too. I wasn't sure if that was the first illustration or if it was just like the first notable illustration, because it did, like, keep getting printed over and over and over again. Because it was so popular, though, I.

[Craig]

My edition, my Kindle edition that I read had the Bransom edition.

[Andrew]

Interesting.

[Craig]

And there they raised some questions that I also think are present in other editions as well, but maybe even more so in mine about these animals. I do also want to say I listened to a portion of the audiobook by Curtis Sisko. Oh, boy, he did. I enjoyed it. He did a couple of funny voices for some of the creatures that are some songs throughout the book that he really went ham on. So good for him. And yeah, the, as we said, the book is kind of compiled out of these children's stories that he was telling for his son. He also kind of wrote some of those stories home in letters to, to his son when he was away. There was Disney film in 1949. The first telecast was the 1946 BBC adaptation. There was a Broadway musical that I think Nathan Lane may have been in, in 85.

[Andrew]

I mean, he's in everything. It's just safe to assume it's like bubbling in sea on the, on on a standardized test. Like you're, you're statistically pretty likely to be correct.

[Craig]

Yes. And There was a 1996 live action film which I didn't look up anything about, but I can't imagine how that would work. And yeah, it's been, it's been getting a lot of, you know, it became canonized despite, you know, initial poor reviews. It's been listed among like, you know, the top hundred English language books, like a bunch of different publications like the Guardian and all sorts of places. And yeah, it's just kind of there for you now if you, if you've never read it to go check it out as like, this is a seminal work of children's literature that involves a frog getting addicted to cars and a mole, like, missing its home and a rat wondering what a life at sea would be like.

[Andrew]

I mean, if you had never seen a car before. Well, and like your species didn't even like, believe in cars and then somebody invented cars and told you about cars, you probably would be pretty into them too. You probably would love these magical, these magical machines.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's a little bit of what happens here. But again, I have some questions.

[Andrew]

Sure. I've got a little bit of stuff on the anthropomorphization of the animals in this book. I don't know if you want to talk about that now or if you want to wait until we get into the book.

[Craig]

Let's save that till after the break because it's a big part of my experience of reading and listening to this tale.

[Andrew]

Okay, sounds great.

[Craig]

Andrew. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Did you know that November is a month of gratitude, Andrew?

[Andrew]

I have, I've heard that about, about gratitude.

[Craig]

And I would like to say that one person I'm grateful for is you.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's nice.

[Craig]

And who are you?

[Andrew]

I'm. I'm grateful. I guess I'm grateful for you. If I said anybody else, I seem like A real jerk, huh?

[Craig]

Well, my, my notes here say ask Andrew who he's grateful for. And he can't say me what I am grateful for.

[Andrew]

My son.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

My five year old son who has whose first school pictures came back today. And they're real. They're real bangers.

[Craig]

Here's someone we don't thank enough, Andrew. Ourselves. Neither of us were thankful for ourselves. Right.

[Andrew]

That's deep.

[Craig]

I know. I want our listeners to think about how, you know, that's important. You got to be thankful for yourself. I think that therapy is a great way to take stock of the people, including yourself, that you are thankful for. Because it can be hard to think through some of our most important relationships without a dedicated space and time on the calendar. And that's really what I think therapy is great for. You know, taking the time so you can be more present in or aware of those relationships on a day to day basis. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give Better help a try. Like all of us, it's entirely online and like all of us, it is designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. So let the gratitude flow with better help. Visit betterhelp.com overdue today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. HP.com overdue.

[Andrew]

Craig I think I, I, I want to set the table for what, what the animals are like in this book. And then you, you can kind of tell me what you, your experience with them is.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Because you asked me to to see what I could find if anybody had written anything on the anthropomorphization of the animals in this book. Yeah, I did find some people talking about it on Literature Stack Exchange and just being like, what's the deal with these, with this like toad who has hair? Like what's going, like what?

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And then also I found a, what I would say is a disappointingly short article on Wikifer about the animals in this book. Now this is very short entry. Does describe this as an early slash defining example of rabbits in waistcoats, which has a much longer trope as a trope. This is, this is a trope. Yes.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Wikifur says that the rabbits in waistcoats terminology is semi derogatory. Does not expand upon that really. But it does refer to any story where animals are dressed up like and act like people, but are still animals who still have kind of animal concerns about like being hunted.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And where they exist in the animal kingdom.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Beatrix Potter and Alice in Wonderland's White Rabbit are also cited as. As examples. There are other works that get lumped in here too, even though they don't meet the, like, precise rabbits and Waste coast coats definition. Yes, the article does say the Watership down rabbits aren't humanlike enough. While it's more appropriate to categorize most of the Winnie the Pooh animals as plushies and not as rabbits in waste waistcoats. Okay.

[Craig]

This is actually.

[Andrew]

That's why Craig. That's why I brought it. And it was also my first encounter with Wikifur, which is. Which was also eye opening.

[Craig]

I've never been there. Maybe I'll go.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Find out more. I learned something today. I didn't have a name for this trope.

[Andrew]

Yes. Rabbits and waistcoats.

[Craig]

Okay, so the thing about animals in.

[Andrew]

This book, and it's like a distinctly British thing also.

[Craig]

It's very British.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

So there's a version of this book that you can imagine that is not about animals at all. It's about four men in Edwardian Britain, like with their top hats and their waistcoats and their. Some of them have money and some of them don't. And the Industrial revolution has led way to the motor car revolution. And here we are like very tup tup, cheerio, oh, fiddle, dee dee, you know, kind of stuff.

[Andrew]

And there's this like, Marie Jim. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yes. It is a. It is also a novel that is largely concerned with pastoral like existence.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

It is my understanding that part of Graham's youth after his mother died was that were like living on this manor on, like out in the woods and that he spent a lot of time on a riverbank and just be. Kind of came be kind of enamored with a bit of a country lifestyle, at least as a young kid. And so he associates that. His childhood with that. And there's this, you know, possibility in youth that it comes along with this kind of living. There is this strain in the book that is like a tension between living where you're supposed to live or where you have begun living in your life and like going off on adventures and what. What can happen to you if you went on. Off on an adventure. And I will say that by and large, in this book, like, adventure is not a good thing. It is not a thing that like, immediately leads to a lot of good stuff for. For Toad in particular. And that'll.

[Andrew]

Can you tie this into the sort of rigid British class structure? And what about like, social mobility and.

[Craig]

Yes. That you're not supposed to like, punch above your weight class and whatnot yes, there is a little bit at the end where, like, two animal communities have had some healing as a result of the events of the book. And Mr. Toad does kind of distribute a little bit of his wealth, as he should, to pay some people back. But they're like the two of the characters, the rat and the mole, both have passages that are about this tension. The mole is our like. He's our kind of our. Our everyman that we meet early.

[Andrew]

Every mole. Thank you.

[Craig]

He. Oh, boy. He has ventured out of his little mole home for the first time. The book is. Is kind of charming in how it describes this. And I'll give you two quotes back to back from the beginning of the book, because one just, like, is a good example of how a lot of just run on sentences are in this book. And then the second sentence is, like, kind of beautiful. So beginning of the book.

[Andrew]

Okay, hit me.

[Craig]

The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring cleaning his little home, first with brooms, then with dusters, then on ladders and steps and chairs with a brush and a pail full of whitewash till he had dust in his throat and eyes and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur and an aching back and weary arms. So lots of commas and semicolons just like, holding that sentence together. Keep in mind that this is now a mole who lives underground, but he has a brush and whitewash and ladders. And, you know, there's another passage later where he's putting on, like, a coat and some boots and things like that. But he does live in a little hole.

[Andrew]

Whitewash is so. And my main. Like, you have it in here, and you have it in Tom Sawyer, too, with the whitewashing, the fence.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

It just like. It's so cheap that you can't call it paint. I can just imagine something that is gonna look good for maybe two weeks.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It just does not wear very well, but you just keep painting it over itself. But it's clean now again. Yeah, sure, it looks clean for now.

[Craig]

But then this gives way to spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. Just like moles. Got to see the world, man. Like spring has come, and you just got to get out there and see the world. And there's. There is a quality to Graham's language that is sometimes I found pretty verbose, which made it hard to follow. Okay, maybe in the audiobook it worked a little bit Easier for me than when it was on the page because I could, like, someone had already rehearsed how to make sense of the sentence a little bit.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Okay. But then you get these, like, little passages where in particular, I think he has a knack for personifying a concept or an inanimate object or something in a way that, like, communicates how the character is feeling. So, like, spring is moving through the air. There's a time when Toad, later in the book is, like, he has to wash clothes to pretend that he's a washer woman. More on that later.

[Andrew]

Okay. This is a lot to unpacking that.

[Craig]

The objects he's washing, like, won't communicate with him or, like, won't give him any positive feedback or something. And it's a way to describe that he doesn't know what he's doing.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

But, like, his experience is that the clothes refuse to get clean. Like, it's just an interesting way to phrase some of this stuff.

[Andrew]

I've had. I mean, I have had not. Not so much with clothes, but, like, with countertops and things. Just.

[Craig]

Oh, or a dish.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah. Just they. If it refuses to get clean.

[Craig]

So that's. That's kind of moles jumping off point. And as. So the animal person thing is that a mole lives in the ground. He's digging in a hole, and he has to go out in spring because he has this yearning for a world he's never experienced. And he goes out there and it's kind of neat. There's a rabbit walking down the road saying, like, charging people for rides or something. Like, it's like, why is there money in this world? I don't understand. And then he meets a rat, the water rat, who is not just, like, swimming in the river. He's got a little boat. Yeah. They become friends right away. And like, one of the things. One of the fairy tale qualities of this book is that people can become friends instantly and then their friendship can be tested, but they will always remain friends. And, like, it's either like a fairy.

[Andrew]

Tale quality or like a. A kid childhood.

[Craig]

Yes. Exact quality. Yes. It feels fairy talish because as adults, we don't often experience it that way, but that is a way that kids move through the world. You're right.

[Andrew]

I do. Yeah. It is kind of like I need to meet somebody by chance, like, three times and have, like, good interactions with them before I can, like, ask somebody who knows them for their number or something. We could all collectively, like, intend to hang. It's just. It's A very complicated thing. And maybe it doesn't need to be that complicated.

[Craig]

Probably doesn't. Especially not if you're a mole or a water rat.

[Andrew]

There's a very good bluey episode about this that I think is called Cafe. About how bluey makes a friend instantly and then blue.

[Craig]

And then the dads have to become friends at the playground. Yes. It's a very good episode with her.

[Andrew]

Dad over the course of many days. Yes.

[Craig]

And the rat, like, why are you.

[Andrew]

Why is this taking you so long? I don't understand.

[Craig]

It is a good episode. The rat is a bit of a romantic. He loves living by the river. He likes to compose poetry on his own time.

[Andrew]

In a van down there. He's living in a van down there.

[Craig]

He does not. He has his own little house. No van. But he is fundamentally like a creature of his area. He. As he's talking to the mole. The mole's never been outside before. I guess it's kind of confusing. And he's like, hey, that's the wild wood. That's where all the mean animals live. We don't go there.

[Andrew]

It's a bad neighborhood.

[Craig]

Yep. We live by the river. And beyond the wildwood is the wide world. And we don't go there either.

[Andrew]

Right. That's even scary.

[Craig]

He introduces the mole to Otter. At this point, nobody has names, so I'm like, okay, all. There's only one of every animal, and they're all named what they are. Okay. Totally fine.

[Andrew]

Okay. Makes sense.

[Craig]

They meet Toad at Toad Hall.

[Andrew]

Now Toad is driving a go kart.

[Craig]

Not yet. There's lots of references to the money that Mr. Toad has. This is what Rat says. There's Toad hall. And that creek on the left where the notice board says, private no landing allowed. Leads to his boathouse, where we'll leave the boat. The stables are over there to the right. There's the banqueting hall. You're looking at very old. That is. Toad is rather rich, you know, and this is really one of the nicest houses in these parts, though we never admit as much to Toad. And I have a lot of questions right away about money and what it is for this Toad to be, like, old money.

[Andrew]

Like, yeah, right. Like, how do you. How do you. Who needs it? How do you get it?

[Craig]

Like, what's very confusing? And Toad is, you know, you meet him right away. He's, like, wearing top hats and, like, a vest. And if you look up any image of the. Of the Disney Mr. Toad, it seems to be pretty in line with the who's the eh, what's his name?

[Andrew]

Eh. Shepherd.

[Craig]

Shepherd. The shepherd kind of stuff which has him in like little fancy clothes.

[Andrew]

These are all the, all the classic markers of the aristocracy. Everybody looks like the Monopoly guy when they're rich.

[Craig]

They're hanging out with Mr. Toad and they. I'm just going to send you a link, Andrew. They're hanging out with Mr. Toad. Mr. Toad has a caravan. Like it's going to be drawn by a horse that he's going to go on an adventure with. Because Mr. Toad is an addictive enthusiast, they describe him as where he gets very caught up in new fads. And currently his the fad is horse drawn caravans.

[Andrew]

I've never experienced this kind of hyper fixation around a new thing and I don't. And I kind of insult. I, I feel insulted by you bringing it up to me.

[Craig]

So he's gonna. So Mr. Toad wants to go on this trip somewhere with his caravan. Rat's a little skeptical. Mole is a pushover because he's never experienced any of this.

[Andrew]

He's a rube.

[Craig]

And so all three of them go together. There's a horse with them. The horse is pulling the Toad's caravan.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And I. Every version of this that I've looked up has different solutions for the size of everything.

[Andrew]

Like yeah, it's, it's, it's tough to have a, have a, like a, you know, a draft horse. Like a work animal in with all these people animals. I bet.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And like how big is the people animals compared to the, the, the work.

[Craig]

Animal, the Disney movie? I think he's still a big horse relative to smaller toad. Okay.

[Andrew]

Is the toad toad size though or.

[Craig]

Well, just okay in the film? Yes. In some of the, some of the Arthur Rackham's work and the Age Lawrence work. I don't know that they are all that size. But here's an image from the, from the Bransom that has just a really bizarre. Like none of the creatures are wearing clothes and there's a little rat just pulling a horse.

[Andrew]

Does this and this. Does this rat have a bird in a birdcage also?

[Craig]

Yes, he does have a tiny bird, a tiny bird.

[Andrew]

The rat is rat size and the bird is like half the size of the rat which is pretty small. I guess.

[Craig]

The horse is horse size.

[Andrew]

The horse is horse size. The toad is toad sized. I mean all the animals are walking on there.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

Like they are bipedal. Like the animals that are supposed to be people are bipedal. The horse, the horse is supposed to be a Horse. And so it's walking on all four of its.

[Craig]

Like the horse in the book never gets a name and never gets a capital H, unlike the other animals. But there is a reference to at one point the mole talking to the horse because the horse was bored.

[Andrew]

But the conversing with the correct.

[Craig]

Okay, but the horse never like gets true personhood. It's very confusing.

[Andrew]

I mean, maybe there's another book where the horse is from the horse's perspective and we, and we just, and we experience a day in his life and we don't hear anything about this toad and this mole and this rat that he gave a ride to one time.

[Craig]

This book is, you know, we have had a lot of fun with animal books in the past. And so I'm primed coming into this book. Like, what is the animal system here? And I just keep getting thrown curveballs left and right.

[Andrew]

Okay, so here's a question that always comes up.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Do humans exist?

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay. They do exist.

[Craig]

They do exist.

[Andrew]

Okay, so when do humans and the, and the sentient animals interact at all?

[Craig]

Yes, they do.

[Andrew]

And how are people? How big are things relative?

[Craig]

It's very unclear. It's really unclear.

[Andrew]

Like is Mr. Toad, when he's driving a car, is it like a mouse and motorcycle thing where it's a little tiny car or is he driving a people cycle car that he got from people?

[Craig]

Also unclear.

[Andrew]

That's a wild thing to leave unclear.

[Craig]

While they are on this trip, they see a car on the road. Okay. Now the thing you have to know about Toad is that he is not planned well enough for this trip. So his friends have to go get some of the food. They have to go get the milk and the eggs that they're gonna cook. They're gonna cook the eggs.

[Andrew]

Sure. Later there will be rental products from other animals.

[Craig]

They will make bacon and have lobster salad. They, Mr. Toad will eat a rabbit stew.

[Andrew]

This, this says more about humans. Lack of. General lack of. What's, what's the word I'm looking for? Like we just, we just eat the meat of other things that are made of meat and don't really think about it most of the time.

[Craig]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

So this is more of a commentary on that.

[Craig]

Yeah, I think it's like Graham is just like, wouldn't it be funny if the toad made rabbit stew? Like he's telling his son, like, isn't it funny that they're eating rabbit stew?

[Andrew]

There are fictional works where pigs eat bacon. So like, this is not the most messed up thing I've ever Encountered in, in like anthropomorphic animals.

[Craig]

But also there are like sentient rabbits that they talk to like it's just what are we doing anyway? They're on the road and they see something driving at them down the road while they have this horse. Right, here's, here's what it sounds like. Andrew.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

The poop poop rang with a brazen shout in their ears. They had a moment's glimpse of an interior of glittering plate glass in rich Morocco. And the magnificent motor car. Immense breath snatching passionate with its pilot. Tense and hugging. His wheel possessed all earth and air for the fraction of a second floor. Flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and wrapped them utterly. And then dwindled to a speck in the far distance changed back into a droning bee once more. Poop poop is the sound that cars make in this book.

[Andrew]

Poop poop. In Thomas the. In the original Thomas the Tank Engine books, each engine has its own whistle sound. And Gordon's. Gordon's whistle sound is poop, poop, poop, poop. Yeah. So that's fun to read to a modern five year old who has recently discovered that pooping and fars and butts, it's pretty funny. It's like the funniest stuff in the whole world.

[Craig]

I can't imagine why kids may have had trouble with. Flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and enwrapped them utterly. Just, you know, a fun book for kids. It's easy to read.

[Andrew]

Kids just knew longer words back then.

[Craig]

Also possible. Glorious, stirring sight, murmured Toad. The poetry of motion. The real way to travel. The only way to travel. Here's today in next week, tomorrow. Villages skipped towns and cities jumped. Always somebody else's horizon. Oh, bliss. Oh, poop poop. Oh my. Oh my. Toad is now addicted to cars. He needs one badly.

[Andrew]

Oh, poop poop.

[Craig]

Oh poop poop. He says.

[Andrew]

Oh my, oh my.

[Craig]

The horse just, you know, buggers off. He doesn't want to be here anymore. Mole and Rat are going to take a train back to town. Now. Now I know that trains exist. Very confusing.

[Andrew]

If cars exist, why wouldn't trains exist?

[Craig]

Well, that's fair. And then Toad is gonna buy him. Buy himself a car. And that's. That's where we leave Toad for a little while.

[Andrew]

Okay?

[Craig]

I'm getting to the humans. I promise we'll get there.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I figured.

[Craig]

We go. Mole spends a night going into the Wild Wood. He shouldn't. It's snowing. It's dangerous. He gets Scared, he gets lost. Rat comes out to find him. This is when we learn that Rat has guns. He puts on his belt a pair of pistols.

[Andrew]

If there are cars and there are trains, and it would make sense that there were guns. This is all just. They all just exist on the same technology tree.

[Craig]

So I will just note again, it is unclear from them.

[Andrew]

And then the rat gets out an iPad or something. Like, it's. This all makes sense to me.

[Craig]

It's unclear from the motor car section that introduction, how big the car is relative to the rest of them and if the driver was human or not. Just a motor car drives by. So Ratty goes out to save Mole. His name is. They call him Ratty.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He goes out with his guns to save Mole, and they. They get a little lost. They get a little lost in the snow, and they find Badger's house. Mr. Badger is a big old recluse, but he's kind of the celebrity of the woods. And it's cool. If you know him, you're cool. Like, that's kind of how Badger works.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

He's the only, like, character of the four main characters who doesn't get, like, his own chapter in story.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He mostly functions as kind of an older protector character for our younger. Our younger friends.

[Andrew]

Well, and keeping him more of a remove does make him seem more cool, because that is true unknowable, and.

[Craig]

Yeah, that is true. And from him, we learn a little bit about, like, the other predators that exist in the woods. Would you be surprised to know, Andrew, a la Red Wall, that stoats and weasels and ferrets are evil because they live in the woods. And I guess they're like predators, sort.

[Andrew]

Of just real unsavory characters.

[Craig]

No mention of the fact that the otter that we met earlier, like, just chomps on fish all the time. Like, fish don't have perf personhood in this. But that's. That's a pretty. I think that's a pretty common dividing line.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, even in, like, Pokemon. I think the one Pokemon who's, like, unambiguously food is Magikarp.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's true.

[Andrew]

He sucks so bad. One I've done one real life ferret, and he was a real jerk. And he always would take your shoes and hide them.

[Craig]

He would take your shoes?

[Andrew]

Yeah. He just loved to pick up shoes and run away.

[Craig]

I didn't know a ferret could pick up a shoe.

[Andrew]

Well, this. This one did. And he. Wow. Really, really, really sucked. He was a real jerk. I don't Know if you've known any.

[Craig]

Of these animals, Never known a ferret. I'll take your word for it that they suck. I'm sure there's like a bunch of our listeners have ferrets and they're all wonderful.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like I don't want to. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but they do smell and they are horrible.

[Craig]

The smelling thing. Yeah, I could buy that in the same way that I. I would never personally have a rat for a pet, but I know plenty of people do. And they're like very intelligent and like cool animals.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Some people have squirrels for pets. Like it's a whole thing.

[Craig]

Some people used to. The mole and the rat become really good friends with the badger. Well, the rat already was. But he introduces Mole to the badger and then that like badger and otter, like, help mole and rat get home. Mole and rat are hanging out, they're walking around. And this is the first of the kind of interlude chapters that we get where Mole, while they're walking around feels this like indelible pull to his own. His old home that he left behind. And he like has like kind of a blow up with rat where he's like, I gotta go back and see my house. You have to let me go back and see my house. And he goes there and he like likes it. It's kind of nice that his stuff is there and he like remembers why he likes all the stuff he left there and. But he also wants his adventure. Here's the passage that, okay, is kind of really nice. He saw clearly how plain and simple, how narrow even it all was, but clearly too how much it all meant to him and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces to turn his back on sun and air, all they offered him and creep home and stay there. The upper world was all too strong. It called to him still, even down there. And he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this. To come back to this place which was all his own. These things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome. I just read that. I was like, that's a really like lovely little encapsulated capsulization. Encapsulation.

[Andrew]

Encapsulation. Even you've inserted a syllable that doesn't need to go in there.

[Craig]

Okay, thank you. Of the. Like you. It's nice to visit home, but you don't have to like Hallmark Christmas movie about it. Like you don't have to move there and relinquish your like corporate job that you know, where no one understands the value of Christmas.

[Andrew]

For some. For some woman who loves Christmas so much that it is in the DSM 5 that you can't like Christmas like it is.

[Craig]

It is kind of nice to see familiar things and to remember why you like them and why they held value. But that isn't everything. And you can kind of hold two thoughts in your brain at once. It's kind of a nice sentiment. But it's my understanding that chapters like this get left out of abridged versions of the book. They get kind of folded into littler moments in stage adaptations or. I'm not sure how much the Disney adaptation bothers with this kind of stuff at all and really focuses on the Toad stuff which is going to pick up pretty soon.

[Andrew]

Is that. Is that just like adaptations are usually more like kid centric or action centric and like the hijinks of a toad driving a car are easier to make work that way or what?

[Craig]

I think it's that and this like this chapter does not advance a plot at all. There's no references to Toad in it. There's no like there's. This is a one time he told this story to his son or whatever about Mole missing his house. It's just like a kind of a thought experiment about what Moles inner life might be. It doesn't. It doesn't move. So yeah, if you're adapting to a cartoon or to a. A stage play that needs to have a forward plot momentum. Maybe this is a monologue that you drop in and Act 2. Now that Mole's been away from his house for a while or something. Sure. So Toad, after they like hang out for a few weeks and whatever we find out that Toad has crashed like a bajillion cars. He's been in the hospital. He's bought like seven of them. Yep. He's been to hospital about it and they treated him. Yeah.

[Andrew]

There's a hospital that treats toads.

[Craig]

Unclear who works there and what species they are. In spring they do you remember that chapter in Don Quixote where they tried to lock him in his house and burn all his books that he like wouldn't go be a knight errand again.

[Andrew]

Yes, I do remember that.

[Craig]

There's a chapter in this where Badger, Mouse, Badger, Mole and Rat try to lock Toad in his house that he won't steal any more cards and he escapes by like, you know, telling one of them who's on watch that he like needs a lawyer or something. For some reason they're going to go call a lawyer for him and he like hops out the window using bedsheets and like gets in a car and drives away.

[Andrew]

I guess I assume these are human sized cars because why would so many toad sized cars just be sitting around?

[Craig]

That's possible. So it's smash cuts. Yeah, it's the book, Smash Cuts from Toad. Being like, driving is the best toad. A literal judicial clerk being like, here are the charges against Mr. Toad. He is, he is being sent to prison for 20 years for like car.

[Andrew]

He found a bait car.

[Craig]

He did find a bait car for car theft and reckless endangerment and like, you know, fighting back against cops, which, whatever. And he is sent to human prison. I, I'm reading this thinking he is sent to human prison, but I guess in this world everyone gets to go to whatever PR prison the world thinks is necessary.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like they didn't say that he went to Toad hospital. He just went to hospital. And so I think the prison would be the same way I have.

[Craig]

Okay, so here's another one.

[Andrew]

I don't know if they have a, a toad wing in the, in the prison. Now I checked where toads are kept.

[Craig]

But I checked what the cartoon had for the prison sequence and it does have him like hallucinating a vision of his horse. So the scale is all such that toad feels kind of small, but also he looks like a man. And maybe that was also the British telecast version where he looked even more like a man. But here is the, here's the illustration that I have where there's a jailer's daughter. Does that open up for you in the link I sent?

[Andrew]

Let me see if I can see it. It's so, am I looking at a woman?

[Craig]

A human woman of human woman size?

[Andrew]

Yes, a human woman.

[Craig]

It's just a toad on the ground.

[Andrew]

And a toad on the ground playing dead or being dead.

[Craig]

I don't know. He's despondent. He's in jail and she.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she's. She's just like, she's got like a cloth in her hands. She looks like she belongs on like an old timey like box. Like a baking powder box or something.

[Craig]

Yeah. And she, she takes pity on him because he's just a toad in jail and she likes animals and she agrees to help him escape dressed as a washer woman. So she brings him clothes. At this point, I feel like the illustrations are not describing the world as the book intends, because the toad is vaguely human, woman sized, wearing washerwoman clothes as he escapes from prison in women's clothes. He gets hooted and hollered at on the street by men. He gets on a human train and convinces the engine driver to help him escape from the police because the engine driver says acab, because he doesn't like cops. And he steals another lady's horse. So he's interacted with other humans who are mistaking him for a human.

[Andrew]

I read some of this on that. That literary Stack Exchange post that I found about. About people mistaking the toad for a human and saying if he. I mean, he must be mostly human size. He's clearly got hair. Like he's. He's got to be pretty human if you have to actually get up close to him to learn that he.

[Craig]

To know that he's a toad.

[Andrew]

But that exists in conflict with this picture that you've sent me of a toad, a regular toad laying on his back on the ground while. While a human woman looks on.

[Craig]

So weird. This is.

[Andrew]

This is troubling.

[Craig]

So then he sells the woman's horse to some Romani and he gets like six shillings for it.

[Andrew]

What? And then does he boost another car or what?

[Craig]

Well, he like boosts it. He boosts his horse for food. And then he sees another car driving down the road and a bunch of men are like, oh, a lady who needs help. Get in our car. And as soon as he's in the car, he cannot help.

[Andrew]

Of course he can't. He's got a problem.

[Craig]

The book describes it as tremors coming up through his body. And he is like, I have to drive this car. And he asks the guy driving the car, he's like, can I drive the car? And they're like, a lady drive a car, Go for it. And then he progresses. He starts driving and he immediately rips off his disguise and he says, ho, ho. I am the Toad, the motor car snatcher, the prison breaker Toad who always escapes. Sit still and you shall know what driving really is. For you are in the hands of the famous, the skillful, the entirely fearless toad. And he crashes the car and plunges into a river.

[Andrew]

Okay, this is probably not the getaway that he envisioned. No, probably.

[Craig]

He's in the river. Rat winds up saving him, and Rat brings him home.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like the other animals are even still in this. Like, what are.

[Craig]

Yeah, so I did skip over two chapters that like, kind of flit about in here. One, Rat and Mole are helping to locate a Lost otter cub. Because some of the otters have names like Billy and whatever. It's weird. And while they're out looking for this cub, they hear some, like, spooky music, and they follow it somewhere and they see what is essentially the God panel.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Playing pipes for them.

[Andrew]

I think that. I think that illustration is also on the, like, the COVID of the original.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

Printing. Yeah.

[Craig]

And he's described as the friend and the helper. And he has been watching over this otter cub. And then as soon as he disappears, they forget that they see him, though they were filled with awe to see their God or whatever. And they're kind of just left with a feeling that a good world is possible and that there's, you know, a reason for goodness in the world. And it is this, like, oddly religious chapter kind of tucked in here.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

That has nothing to do with the plot other than animals going on adventures. Okay. There's another chapter where Ratty meets a sea rat who goes on human boats like regular, like rats in our universe do. This rat knows what Constantinople is. Andrew, all these animals have heard of England. They reference a style of beer that has been around in England for a thousand years. But this rat has, you know, knows about Constantinople, knows about, like, going, you know, to shore. And he doesn't go on, like, cross ocean voyages. He always stays on boats that can see the coast. But it's all about, like, going out and traveling and seeing the world. And it entrances Rat so much that he tries to pack his own bag and leave the house. And Mole sees a weird look in his eyes and, like, what are you doing? Breaks him of this spell. And then Rat decides to stay home. Is this weird, like, he got hypnotized by a sea rat story? Romantic story, I guess.

[Andrew]

But also, we're, like, cool being friends with this, like, kleptomaniac toad who endangers himself and others by stealing cars and crashing them all the time.

[Craig]

Huh. Yeah. There's some small c, like, better to stay home conservatism in this book. And yet all the characters thirst for adventure. And in a way that is, like, it is fun to go on an adventure sometimes. Okay, what is else is happening with Mr. Toad?

[Andrew]

What else? Because we.

[Craig]

Yeah, no, we're running out of time while he was gone.

[Andrew]

Close to the end.

[Craig]

We are pretty close to the end. And so from here on out, one of the reasons I went back to those other chapters is because from here on out, it is just Mr. Toad's story. And this is how you can see how many Adaptations have just, like, focused solely on him because he's also like, the Falstaff of the book. He's this very, you know, big comic character. While he's gone, the weasels, stoats, and ferrets have taken over his big manor house. They have squatted in toad Hall. They've taken it over. They're evil, and they have guns, or at least their leaders might be evil. Who knows when Toad learns of this, Andrew, this is the way that this book works. He says he will run away and enlist as a soldier because he will never get to go home. What army? What countries he fought? What is the. What is this book?

[Andrew]

Is there, like, a toad brigade that he.

[Craig]

Unclear. He just says he will enlist a soldier, meaning he will enlist as a soldier home.

[Andrew]

Probably wouldn't let him drive anything. I hope.

[Craig]

The four.

[Andrew]

He's pretty bad at it.

[Craig]

The four heroes come up with a plan to sneak back into toad hall through a passage that only Toad's departed dad and Badger knew about. Know about the. The late Mr. The late father. Toad apparently told badger about this, like, secret passageway and said, don't tell my son because he can't keep a secret. And, my God, Toad is so conceited. When badger says this to him, Toad's like, you know what? You're right. I can't really keep a secret, because when people start talking to me, they just love me so much. Like, I just want to tell them everything I know. It's just because I have so many friends. I have the gift of gab. That's why I can't keep a secret. You know, I'd. Man, this Toad rules. I forgot about the part where he sings a song about how cool he is about how the queen and her ladies in waiting thought he was handsome.

[Andrew]

That's a really cool. It's a really cool, like, hype track that Toad is recording himself.

[Craig]

They do wind up taking back toad hall by first Mole dresses as a lady. And tell and tells them that there's going to be a big army of badgers somewhere else. And so all the sentinels with their guns have to go somewhere else. And then everybody goes through the hole and, you know, smacks around all the weasels and stoats that were having a big party and drives them out. And ultimately, they say, really, the chief weasel was the one who was responsible for this. And everybody else just went along with him so we can forgive them them. They throw a big banquet to celebrate. Toad pays back the people he has wronged, mostly at the direction of his friends who have had multiple interventions with him about how much of a loser he is.

[Andrew]

Right. And he pays them back with his old money that he has.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Because he's an aristocrat.

[Craig]

Toad. The book does pay a little lip service to the fact that now the wildwood and the riverbank communities have had some healing because once they kicked out the chief weasel. And everybody knows that Toad is super cool now as opposed to a loser who got thrown in jail for racing cars. Which is part of, part of the reason we don't like the Stoats and Weasels is that once Toad got thrown in jail they all made up a bunch of mean songs about him.

[Andrew]

Diss tracks. I mean it sounds, this all sounds, this all sounds within bounds to me. I don't, I don't know, I don't know how, where we get off calling the weasel weasels and the stoats evil. They just seem like they're having fun.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Andrew]

And making up songs based on the best available data at the time.

[Craig]

That's correct. But yeah, when he, when, when he gets in that car with the men who are like, oh, a lady who needs help. That for me was like I really don't know how big these animals are. I really don't know. I've seen like images from the film where like it's small animals in human sized court. A like B movie or something. And that's just not what's happening here. I don't know how to be explain it. Not a B movie situation.

[Andrew]

I mean but that picture that you sent me again of the normal sized human woman and the normal toad sized toad does imply kind of a B movie situation.

[Craig]

That is true. But that's, but that was not.

[Andrew]

Then she doesn't break up with her boyfriend to, to be romantically involved with the toad.

[Craig]

Yes. And I don't know how involved Graham was with that first run of illustrations either because it was.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like the different edition.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like word on the street is that he approved of the shepherd ones before he died.

[Craig]

Yes, the eh. Shepherd ones.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But, but I, yeah, I don't know.

[Craig]

About, I don't know about 20 years later. So I don't really know where that came about. Oh, and Branson was American too. So it's possible that this is a different like American edition.

[Andrew]

Possibly. He just couldn't conceive of, of human sized toads.

[Craig]

He's not British enough.

[Andrew]

He's not British enough. We did, I mean Wikifer did, did tell us that rabbits in waistcoats is kind of a more British thing.

[Craig]

So that's. That's like the story of. Oh, my God. That's the story of the book. I think the. The thing that is probably like most memorable to people who cherish it and love it is a Toad is just a really fun character. He. I have. I have not fully conveyed how conceited and egotistical he is in addition to be a maniac for the road. And he's like. When they tell him that he has to send out invitations to all the people for his banquet, he writes like, the agenda for the party. That is like speech by Toad. There will be other speeches by Toad. Address by Toad. And this includes a synopsis on our prison system song by Toad composed by himself. Other compositions by Toad will be sung in the course of the evening by the composer. Like, it's just unreal. And at least six times in the book, an animal has a heart to heart with Toad about how he's ruining everyone's life. And by the end, he kind of comes around to being like, maybe I'll be a slightly different Toad.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm gonna really like Tracy Jordan sort of energy from Toad.

[Craig]

Yes, yes.

[Andrew]

A little bit. As just like a. Like a vaguely benign chaos agent.

[Craig]

Yes. And. And the. The fact of the matter is that all of these animals are going to stick by each other no matter what, even if they have problems. And they're all gonna, you know, be there for Toad, thick or thin. And there's also like a fun little beat where like, Mole gets to have that moment of trickery and the badgers are really impressed by it. And Rad is just like, giving everyone guns and swords, but also like, you know, standing up for his community. So I. And the individual chapters, if you do read an addition with them, you know, just give you an emotional attachment to those characters that is not present in some of the Toad stuff. I do just have my list of things I yelled at my Siri while I was driving a car about how weird the animal stuff is in this book.

[Andrew]

This is a. Have we talked about this before? This is a note taking thing for you is just to yell at Siri when you're driving. Yes.

[Craig]

Because there's no other way this more.

[Andrew]

You do this more than I do because I do not audiobook.

[Craig]

Yeah, but it. And I always have to yell like Wind in the Willows so that I can find the note later. At one point, Frog says, I've been a plain old pig. What is this idiom in A world full of animals where the moles cook bacon in the badger house. The badger, the people, the builders. Wind in the willows, the animal off season, the wind in the willows. All are sleepy when in the willows. Why is the hedgehog named Billy? Wind in the willows, they're eating ham and eggs. Do they wear clothes? Rat fetches mole a dressing gown. Toad is eating rabbit with a lady. Like, these are just. I don't know. The first time I encountered an animal with a name, I got really thrown.

[Andrew]

Like, who had a name that wasn't what it. What he was?

[Craig]

Correct. Correct.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And then generally, folks from our discord have fond feelings about the book, though. Who was it that somebody said that they bounced off it at one point? Janelle, I think the language could be a barrier for some people if they're not, like, on the wavelength.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And a lot of people just mentioning that there was, like, animals that went on a picnic, and that is pretty early in the book, my friends. So I'm not sure that you fully appreciate that. Mr. Toad went to human jail for stealing cars. Our very own. Before gone in 60 seconds. Before Fast and Furious, there was Mr. Toad's wild ride, of course. So, Andrew, grateful for you for letting me tell you this. This story, what Graham described as a book of youth, and so perhaps chiefly for youth and those who still keep the spirit of youth alive in them, of life, Sunshine, running water, woodlands, dusty roads, and winter firesides.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, welp, I guess that's got to be my response to this one as described by you.

[Craig]

What's your favorite? Is Red Wall your favorite anthropomorphized, like, story?

[Andrew]

I mean, if you guys say favorite, it's definitely the one I'm the most, like, familiar with.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I don't know. Tolkien has, like, talking eagles and stuff in it.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Andrew]

It's complicated.

[Craig]

That's true. It is. You're right. It is complicated.

[Andrew]

I would have. I would have to have thought about it long.

[Craig]

You haven't read some recently.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

All right. We talked about Bluey, too, on this. On this podcast here. Blue raises some questions.

[Andrew]

Blue has got a lot of questions about, like, why clothes? Like, why do they have so many underwear when they're naked? Which is all, like. It's a classic.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, anthropomorphic animal thing. It's not, like, groundbreaking in that way.

[Craig]

Wear a costume, but not clothes.

[Andrew]

Yes. And they are animals. But they are people. But they are animals.

[Craig]

Mm. That's a big thing in this too. Like, they talk about animals hibernating. They talk about animals having certain types of instincts and things like that. But then, of course, they are subject to human laws.

[Andrew]

Sure. The law of the land. It applies to everybody equally. That's the. That's the ideal, you know, that's what we want in our society.

[Craig]

The queen thought the toad was hot anyway.

[Andrew]

We don't. Do we know that happened, though, or is that just Toad talking to himself? Okay.

[Craig]

It's just Toad singing himself.

[Andrew]

Okay. All right.

[Craig]

Don't think it happened. Anyway. If you, the listener at home, have any Wind in the Willows takes, send them to us overdue podmail.com hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod on Instagram and bluesky. That's where we're hanging out these days. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. Andrew. Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is our Internet website. We have the links to the books that we have read and are going to read next. Have we talked about our November schedule? Did we talk about it last week? I don't remember. We talked about the kid who ran for president for an hour and 45 minutes. And so I don't remember anything that happened by the end of that one.

[Craig]

We've got two more books coming up this month.

[Andrew]

Yes, but next week I will be reading no Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. Yep. As translated by Donald Keen.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I think we also have a Patreon link on that website. Patreon.com overdue podcast. Submit, submit. Donate to the show. Support us. Submit to our paywall. Donate. Support the show financially. You pay for equipment. You pay for books, you pay for child care and many other odds and ends that keep the show and our lives just kind of trundling along in.

[Craig]

Our comfortable space, keeping them from being a wild ride. So appreciate it.

[Andrew]

Would not, would not want this podcast to be a wild ride. Thank you very much. Yeah. Patreon.com overduepod you get access to our Discord and other things, including our current long read series, which is Sit Me Baby One more time about Anne M. Martin's Babysitters Club series.

[Craig]

Yep. Join us.

[Andrew]

That's it. Anything else?

[Craig]

No, that's it.

[Andrew]

All right, Toads and rats. Until we talk to you next week, everybody, please try to be happy.