Meet the family
Jan. 5th, 2014 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustTime to confess: I read faster than I write, and I have been reading ahead. I knew, of course, that the Mary Poppins books are novels only by courtesy: they progress from beginning (Mary Poppins's arrival) to ending (her departure), but they are episodic in the extreme. On the one hand, each chapter is its own self-contained narrative, and on the other hand, types of chapter repeat from book to book: the one in which Mary arrives, the one with one of her relations, the one in which one of the children is naughty and has to be rescued, the one about the babies, and so on. I knew this, but as I commented on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias's post, I hadn't realised the extent to which the types of chapter vary in style and tone (which explains the extent to which each reader seems to have favourite chapters and definitely-not-favourite chapters).
I have now reached the point in my re-read at which I have read three different versions of some of the early chapters, and am increasingly persuaded of the theory thatnineweaving and I were tentatively advancing in the comments of an earlier post: that as P.L. Travers writes about Mary Poppins, she discovers things that she would have done differently, and does them differently. So in the first book, Mary's arrival, blown by the east wind, is magical if you want it to be (the wind "seemed to" pick her up, "it was as though..." and so on) but does not have to be; in subsequent books the magic is undeniable (except, of course, by Mary herself, who always denies everything). The Afternoon Out, which both nineweaving and I found off-key, is not repeated. Then again, why should it be? It would be more to the point to ask how she is getting away with writing the same book over and over again, and why I don't mind.
The chapter that follows Mary's afternoon out with Bert the Match Man is the first example of the stories in which the children meet one of Mary's relations. She introduces Jane and Michael to many strange and wonderful people, some of whom are old friends and fellow-conspirators, but her relations form a pattern of their own: Mary and her charges arrive at the house, and are greeted by a landlady who is to a greater or lesser degree hostile; they discover that their host suffers from an intermittent affliction, and that today just happens to be the day on which it manifests; the affliction - which turns out to be highly enjoyable - infects the children, and although Mary Poppins is immune she joins in voluntarily, the landlady is won over or otherwise dealt with and Mary announces that it is time to go home. Later, when the children ask her about their afternoon, she denies that anything unusual has happened.
In Mary Poppins, Mary's uncle has, for reasons of his own, invited her to bring the children to tea with him. Later versions of this episode have Mary Poppins calling on the professional services of her kinsman, to repair a broken bowl or tune the piano, so it is more plausible that the visit should just happen to fall on the appropriate (or inappropriate) day - and that day is determined by a more complex formula than simply being the sufferer's birthday. Mary seems surprised that it is her uncle's birthday: but what better reason could there be for a tea party?
Finally, Laughing Gas (Travers seems to have used this title before P.G. Wodehouse, whose novel was published in 1936) closes with the first example of the motif in which Mary Poppins takes the children's remarks as accusations of impropriety, wraps herself in respectability and denies everything. In later versions, some piece of evidence supports the children's belief in the truth of their memories, but on this occasion they are left to fall asleep on the bus, still wondering. It's been suggested that this fierce denial of magic is part of the darker, frightening side of Mary Poppins, but it never bothered me as a child reader, it was just part of her personality, and it doesn't bother me now. If anything, it feels like a game that she is playing, not with the children but with the reader.
sartorias's post, I hadn't realised the extent to which the types of chapter vary in style and tone (which explains the extent to which each reader seems to have favourite chapters and definitely-not-favourite chapters).I have now reached the point in my re-read at which I have read three different versions of some of the early chapters, and am increasingly persuaded of the theory that
nineweaving and I were tentatively advancing in the comments of an earlier post: that as P.L. Travers writes about Mary Poppins, she discovers things that she would have done differently, and does them differently. So in the first book, Mary's arrival, blown by the east wind, is magical if you want it to be (the wind "seemed to" pick her up, "it was as though..." and so on) but does not have to be; in subsequent books the magic is undeniable (except, of course, by Mary herself, who always denies everything). The Afternoon Out, which both nineweaving and I found off-key, is not repeated. Then again, why should it be? It would be more to the point to ask how she is getting away with writing the same book over and over again, and why I don't mind.The chapter that follows Mary's afternoon out with Bert the Match Man is the first example of the stories in which the children meet one of Mary's relations. She introduces Jane and Michael to many strange and wonderful people, some of whom are old friends and fellow-conspirators, but her relations form a pattern of their own: Mary and her charges arrive at the house, and are greeted by a landlady who is to a greater or lesser degree hostile; they discover that their host suffers from an intermittent affliction, and that today just happens to be the day on which it manifests; the affliction - which turns out to be highly enjoyable - infects the children, and although Mary Poppins is immune she joins in voluntarily, the landlady is won over or otherwise dealt with and Mary announces that it is time to go home. Later, when the children ask her about their afternoon, she denies that anything unusual has happened.
In Mary Poppins, Mary's uncle has, for reasons of his own, invited her to bring the children to tea with him. Later versions of this episode have Mary Poppins calling on the professional services of her kinsman, to repair a broken bowl or tune the piano, so it is more plausible that the visit should just happen to fall on the appropriate (or inappropriate) day - and that day is determined by a more complex formula than simply being the sufferer's birthday. Mary seems surprised that it is her uncle's birthday: but what better reason could there be for a tea party?
Finally, Laughing Gas (Travers seems to have used this title before P.G. Wodehouse, whose novel was published in 1936) closes with the first example of the motif in which Mary Poppins takes the children's remarks as accusations of impropriety, wraps herself in respectability and denies everything. In later versions, some piece of evidence supports the children's belief in the truth of their memories, but on this occasion they are left to fall asleep on the bus, still wondering. It's been suggested that this fierce denial of magic is part of the darker, frightening side of Mary Poppins, but it never bothered me as a child reader, it was just part of her personality, and it doesn't bother me now. If anything, it feels like a game that she is playing, not with the children but with the reader.
