On Our Bookshelves: Once on a Time

***

NOVEL: Once on a Time

AUTHOR: A.A. Milne

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1917

REVIEW:

***

Trying to avoid US election and COVID-19 anxiety, I pulled Once on a Time off the shelf.  I only dimly remembered it (and in fact, had conflated it in my mind with The Ugly Duckling, a play by Milne along similar themes) but was sure that it was suitably escapist for my purposes, and it did not disappoint.

***

A.A. Milne is, of course, remembered for being the author who brought us Winnie-the-Pooh, immortalized in two collections of stories (Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner), and various poems (in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six). As beloved as the character is (and as truly wonderful as those four books are), Pooh’s popularity was a serious trial for the author: that enormous success overshadowed his other writing, and seriously damaged his relationship with his son (Christopher Robin Milne, the inspiration for the character of the same name), who was traumatized by his early fame, and mocked and bullied at school. The Pooh books are lovely, and absolutely worth reading (and are considerably stranger and more bittersweet than one might expect if used to the Disney versions of the characters), but they’re tainted a bit, in my mind, by the inadvertent pain they caused the family.  Christopher Robin Milne wrote of this relationship: “It seemed to me almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with the empty fame of being his son.”

***

A.A. Milne, however flawed a parent, was a gifted writer, and his non-Pooh-related work is also really quite good. Once on a Time is a fairy tale, with a framing device of the author writing it based on the historical records of, among others, the fictional historian Roger Scurvilegs. (It is, in that regard, rather similar to William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, and, perhaps if we are lucky, we shall someday get a film version–although it would be hard to imagine a cast nearly so perfect.)  In any event, Once on a Time concerns a war between the kingdoms of Euralia and Borodia, foolish kings (with, to be fair, some surprisingly good characteristics), a princess in distress (although, so it turns out, she wasn’t actually as helpless as she supposed), a handsome prince (the victim of an enchantment and also of a rather troublesome personality), a villainous countess (with complex motivations and some indisputably good points), fairies, true love, and adventure.  It’s an inspired bit of silliness and well worth your time.

Here’s what the author had to say about it:

“For whom, then, is the book intended? That is the trouble. Unless I can say, ‘For those, young or old, who like the things which I like,’ I find it difficult to answer. Is it a children’s book? Well, what do we mean by that? Is The Wind in the Willows a children’s book? Is Alice in Wonderland? Is Treasure Island? These are masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how much more pleasure when we are grown-up. In any case, what do we mean by ‘children’? A boy of three, a girl of six, a boy of ten, a girl of fourteen – are they all to like the same thing? And is a book ‘suitable for a boy of twelve’ any more likely to please a boy of twelve than a modern novel is likely to please a man of thirty-seven; even if the novel be described truly as ‘suitable for a man of thirty-seven’? I confess that I cannot grapple with these difficult problems. But I am very sure of this: that no one can write a book which children will like, unless he write it for himself first. That being so, I shall say boldly that this is a story for grown-ups. […] But, as you see, I am still finding it difficult to explain just what sort of book it is. Perhaps no explanation is necessary. Read in it what you like; read it to whomever you like; be of what age you like; it can only fall into one of the two classes. Either you will enjoy it, or you won’t. It is that sort of book.”

Milne wrote Once on a Time as a soldier, during World War I, in stolen moments, and as a response to propaganda about fairyland: “Life in fairyland…was not so straightforward as the romances pretend. The dwellers therein had much our difficulties to meet, much our complex characters wherewith to attack them.  Princes were not all good or bad; fairy rings were not always helpful; magic swords and seven-league boots not the only necessary equipment for fighter and traveller. The inhabitants of that blessed country were simpler than we; more credulous; but they were real men and women.  I have tried to do justice to them.”

In my opinion, he achieved that justice.  And Milne personally considered this book to be his best.  I can’t go that far–the four Pooh books are classics for good reason.  But this one is worth reading, too.

***

RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3 1/2  Whistles

***

HOW TO PURCHASE: No need, this one is in the public domain.

***

Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel. Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com

***

Photo by Massimiliano Morosinotto on UnsplashNeuschwanstein Castle, Neuschwanstein, Germany – “FOR THΞ THRONΞ 
This is a composite edited in Λdobe Photoshop & Nik Software GEAR⤸ Foreground: Nikon D5500 – Nikkor 18-135 mm Sky: Nikon D5500 – Samyang 14 mm – For more follow my social account: IG: instagram.com/therawhunter/ Unsplash: unsplash.com/@therawhunter Twitter: twitter.com/therawhunter”

***

***

ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:

A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman

A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler

A Room With a View, E.M. Forster

A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley

A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna

After the Fall, Dan Santat

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

An English Murder, Cyril Hare

An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton

An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer

Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Arthur & George, Julian Barnes

Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin

Before the Fall, Noah Hawley

Bleak House, Charles Dickens

Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon

Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan

Books for Living, Will Schwalbe

Bunker Hill, Nathan Philbrick

Burmese Days, George Orwell

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast

Carols and Chaos, Cindy Anstey

Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Cloudstreet, Tim Winton

Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson

Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield

Doctor Jazz, Hayden Carruth

Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland

Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin

Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie

Frederica, Georgette Heyer

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda

Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee

Good Poems, Garrison Keillor

Gowanus Waters, Steven Hirsch

Grey Mask, Patricia Wentworth

H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne

Heads in Beds, Jacob Tomsky

Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole

Here is New York, E.B. White

Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin

How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng

Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch

If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino

In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron

Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain

Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

Lexicon, Max Barry

Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater

Longbourn, Jo Baker

Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi

Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz

Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer

Momo, Michael Ende

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan

My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

New York New York, Richard Berenholtz

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder

One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson

Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard

Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff

Possession, A.S. Byatt

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle…and Other Modern Verse, Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith

Ringworld, Larry Niven

Rose Cottage, Mary Stewart

Rose Madder, Stephen King

Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli

Sing and Shine On!, Nick Page

Snow, Orhan Pamuk

Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh

Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi

Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder

Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart

Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Ed., Lewis Carroll & Martin Gardner (with original illustrations by John Tenniel)

The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler

The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges

The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth

The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith

The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser

The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

The Great Passage, Shion Miura

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs

The Ice House, Minette Walters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman

The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks

The Martian, Andy Weir

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James

The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein

The Modern Kids, Jona Frank

The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah

The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin

The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo

The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer

The Three Questions, Jon J Muth

The Translator, Nina Schuyler

The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki

The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang

The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris

The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin

The Woman in Black, Susan Hill

The Women in Black, Madeleine St John

They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose

Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe

This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader: Joan Dye Gussow

Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart

Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham

Vinegar Girl, Anne Tyler

Ways of Seeing, John Berger

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

What If?, Randall Munroe

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young

You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff