There may come a time when you’re standing in the stacks, book in one hand, DVD in the other. What to do!?! Have no fear. It’s Book vs. Movie.
Book: Winnie-the-Pooh (PR6025. I65 W56, 3rd Floor)
Movie: Winnie the Pooh (PN1997 .W564, 1st Floor)
Seriously late nights? Brain scrambled from studying? News getting you down? These are Winnie-the-Pooh moments (or more likely Eeyore moments, but he’s not the title character).
Few children’s stories are as popular and widely adapted as Winnie-the-Pooh. Inspired in part by a real bear named Winnie at the London Zoo, A. A. Milne wrote the book in 1926 for his son — you guessed it — Christopher Robin Milne.
Despite its popularity as a movie (or movies, since there have been many versions and spin-offs), I don’t get the sense that a lot of people have read the book. This is a total shame because the book is really very clever. It plays with the frame narrative structure (stories set up around a common situation a la The Canterbury Tales or the 1001 Arabian Nights). Trying to figure out what is “real” — perhaps things that are “inside jokes” between father and son — and what is “story” is a really fun exercise. Plus, much of Milne’s play with language is lost on the screen. Pooh.
The Disney movie, Winnie the Pooh, which really began as separate features based on chapters out of the book and other continuations of the Pooh Bear story, is still a good movie. No doubt about it. I mean, really, I don’t remember half the crap I watched on Cartoon Network, but you better believe that Hunny jars and Heffalumps will forever trigger fond childhood memories.
All in all, I think I appreciate the book more now as an adult (wait, am I a grown up? Oh bother) than I did as a kid. But honestly, whatever gives you the warm fuzzies in times of great stress is what you should cling to like Tigger up a tree.
Winner: you, once you’re done with finals
Feel like you need some cartoon time? We’ve got you covered. Join us for Cartoons & Cereal this Monday, April 22, 5-8 p.m. in room 207.