From the Riverbank to Middle Earth and Beyond

I received Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows as a present on my seventh birthday. My mother probably read it to me at least fifty times in the next few years. A cousin who was in college studying to be an English teacher suggested it was a gift form one of her teachers finished out class time reading aloud from her favorite books, of which The Wind in the Willows was one. I later learned that my cousin's teacher continued to read it every other year for the rest of her life. Her devotion to it a the comment of an adult fictional character on TV that The Wind in the Willows was her favorite book convinced me that it isn't just for children and that I could go back to it. I now read it once a year. Not long before I rediscovered The Wind in the Willows, J.R.R. Tolkien became very popular. I read and loved The Lord of the Rings. Probably because reading the three books is a considerable undertaking, I had not re-read it when publicity for the first of the live-action movies revived an interest I had not considered lost. I patiently waited to see the movie and judge it for itself before re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring. I enjoyed the movie very much and reading the books again even more. What impressed me most in acquainting myself again with the trilogy was how many images and phrases reminded me of The Wind in the Willows, a book with which I was particularly familiar by then from my yearly reading. I set out to find if Tolkien had ever said that Grahame influenced him or if a scholar had ever suggested it. Similarities could be due to the fact that they were similar men with similar backgrounds, living in essentially the same culture, time, and place. Influence could be unconscious, how many people read The Wind in the Willows when very younger had read to them and do not remember the source of the influence it makes on their lives, values, and writing. I found only Brian Jacques listing Grahame among the writers who influenced him. Even Jacques places Grahame last of eight influences, though The Wind in the Willows must have had a very direct influence on his creating the animals in the Redwall series. However, Tolkien does state in the first note to his essay "On fairy Stories" that he read and much admired The Wind in the Willows.2 Douglas A. Anderson points out in his Tales Before Tolkien that Tolkien considered The Wind in the Willows an excellent book. I sincerely thank Anderson for sharing the source of his information with me and bringing my search for a direct link between the two writers to a successful conclusion. Perhaps Tolkien relegated Grahame's influence to an endnote because he assumed it to be known that The Wind in the Willows is the bedrock of modern fantasy. As A.A. Milne said: One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can't criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don't be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy, I don't know. But it is you who are on trial.4 Tolkien points out in that same first not to On Fairy Stories that it is strange that, as he held this opinion of The Wind in the Willows, it was Milne who, through his play Toad of Toad Hall, relegated the book to the realm of children's literature for most people. Tolkien believed that Milne should not have dramatized the book.5 However, Grahame is said to have approved making it a play and making it a play for children. If Milne made the River more shallow, he increased its length and breadth. He greatly increased its fame and popularity. Perhaps he and Grahame sensed that if enough people were introduced to the story and were interested, inspired, or curious enough to go on to read Grahame's complete book, some of them would see the truth in the River's depth. Apparently Tolkien greatly admired The Wind in the Willows and wanted to go where it would take him and plunge the River's depth. Much of the early draft of the story had been written as letters to Grahame's son. These letters were published by Grahame's widow after Grahame died. Tolkien wrote his son Christopher July 31-August 1, 1944 that he must obtain a copy of these letters.6 I formed an early impression that The Lord of the Rings is similar to The Wind in the Willows but darker and deeper. By the time I had finished Tolkien's trilogy for the second time and read The Wind in the Willows yet again, I reversed this opinion. Peter Hunt calls The Wind in the Willows many-layered and allusive.7 It has been said that one should read it every ten years and that we will find a different book with each reading. However, the story we read each time seems straightforward enough. It seems perfectly natural for toads to drive motorcars and live in mansions and for rats and moles to act and dress like proper Edwardian gentlemen. If we are being presented with humans, their animal personas seem natural as well. In his biography of Grahame, Peter Green says that characterization was Kenneth Grahame's highest gift.8 His true and unique genius was in bringing together Edwardian society and the timeless world of nature. Tolkien's purpose was to create a new world or re-create an old, forgotten middle time that might have been. Both men created lasting works of genius.