Posts Tagged ‘animal friends’
in a yellow caravan
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame was published in 1908 and has defined the relationship of people to place for four generations. The story of animal friends and their lives along the river is a magical yet down-to-earth tale. It solidifies ideas of home, adventure and longing. It captures (or doesn’t) the insubstantial voice of nature:
… it passes into words and out of them again – I catch them at intervals – then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.
One of the memorable characters of the book is Toad. He is reckless and arrogant, and constantly gets into trouble, but I think his appeal is the adventurer in all of us. Some of his adventures are in a bright yellow caravan …
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2003 ‘Toad’s yellow cart, Wind in the Willows’ Jane Tims
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… there, drawn out of the coach house into the open, they saw a gipsy caravan, shining with newness, painted a canary-yellow picked out with green, and red wheels.
‘There you are!’ cried the Toad … ‘There’s real life for you, embodied in that little cart. The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows … The whole road before you, and a horizon that’s always changing …
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My copy of Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 2007, Vancouver: Blue Heron Books) was illustrated by Robert Ingpen (what a name for an artist!). I will leave you with his illustrations of Toad’s yellow caravan …
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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