2012, first published 1969
The story opens with a tramp
isolated during the Christmas season. The shop-keeper who winds up the mouse
and child clockwork toy is embarrassed by him. People laugh at the tramp as he
mimics the actions of the clockwork toy. The toys come to life after the store
is closed. They all have as set purpose in life and the fate of the mouse and
his child is to dance for the children. They are soon sold and go to a location
where wind-up toys are brought out every Christmas but the children are not
allowed to play with them in case they get broken (loc 145). Then there is
disaster. One year a doll’s house is bought and it makes the
child mouse cry as he remembers the one in the store. The cat is alarmed by
this, jumps up on a nearby surface and knocks a vase to the floor, smashing
both the vase and the wind-up toy (loc164).
Life now becomes
an adventure. The toys are thrown out and found by the tramp we meet at the
beginning. He advises them to become tramps. Shortly after he has left them they
encounter a sinister rat, Manny, who teases them (loc 218). Manny kills a
worn-out donkey (loc 296). The mouse and his child find themselves living
amongst piles of rubbish. The elephant from the toy store, she who had thought
she would be there forever and whom the child mouse wanted as a mother, has
also been sold and broken and is now also in the dump (loc 416). They have
nothing to fear from the shrews, as they don’t
eat tin (loc 547) but their friend the bull-frog must be careful. Manny Rat
remains a threat as well and says he will rip the frog’s throat out (loc 575).
The shrews behave in a military way (loc 598). The mouse and his child and the
frog have become “rations” for the shrews (loc 610). The father mouse is a
little bent and unwittingly leads the shrew into enemy territory (loc 742). The
little drummer boy is killed but the frog rescues the drum and gives it to the
mouse child. He now becomes the drummer boy (loc 668). They also encounter
ferrets and weasels (loc 688).
They meet more
potential friends in a theatre troupe of starlings and crows, the Caws of Art
Classical Repertory Group. Note the pun. Is this rather sophisticated for the
target reader? These help to establish that the mouse and his child are running
away from one creature and are in search of others. The birds supply the voice
of reason (loc 779). There is an astute form of commerce going on. The seal has
been with the troupe. Manny Rat was the agent. He has an interest in wind-up
toys. “He fixes them up and sells them.
And he’s not the rat to destroy his own profits. We paid three bags of jelly
beans for the seal” (loc 791). The repertory group has some sophisticated
plays: “’The whole family loses its territory when the fox forecloses the
mortgage and throws them out of their den’” (loc 809). The company comes under
attack from weasels. The mouse and his child end up on stage and then Manny Rat
appears. The confrontation between him and the mouse and his child is
interpreted as part of the action by the audience (loc 941). After the debacle
in the theatre they are befriended by a parrot who helps them to escape Manny Rat
(loc 964).
The mouse gives
up on the dream. The child does not: “’How
can we ever hope to have our own territory?’ ’But look how far we’ve come!’
said the child“(loc976). Then they meet Muskrat, a musk rat and a
clever-with-words philosopher: “’You’ve heard of Muskrat’s Much-in-Little, of
course? …. Why times How equals What.’”(loc 1041). He is a contrast to the
hard-working beavers who talk only of the dams they have built and the
materials they have used. They also mock Muskrat. Later they meet the turtle,
Serpentina, another philosopher and playwright. Will the intended reader
understand the child’s statement after he has spoken to Serpentina? “’The child
is father of the mouse,’”) loc 1437). Mudd also poses some philosophical
questions: “’I don’t think that’s how I really am. I just can’t believe that
I’m this muddy thing you see crawling about in the muck,” (loc 1465). The child
remains the father of the mouse. “’If I’m big enough to stand in the mud all
this time and contemplate infinity …. I’m big enough to look at the other side
of nothing” (loc 1515). Later the mouse redefines himself and his companions.
”We aren’t toys any more ….. Toys are to be played with and we aren’t. …. Now we have come to that place where the
scattering is regathered” (loc 1789). Manny Rat reflects ”had not their roles
been totally reversed? Had not the hunted become the hunters, the loser the
winners? Had they not risen to the high place he fell from? (loc 2210-15).
The mouse and
his child do meet the elephant again but she is in tatters and accompanied by
Manny Rat.
There is decay.
AS the mouse and his child stay and help Muskrat for a prolonged length of
time: “most of their fur was gone by now,
and what was left was part mildew, and sprouting moss. Their whiskers were
blackened and bedraggled; their rubber tails had lost their snap; their
glass-bead eyes were weather-worn and dim, and the last shreds of the blue velveteen trousers flapped
forlornly about their legs” (loc 1273) The decay continues.
We frequently
see the cruel aspects of nature. The hawk tries to eat the mouse and his child
(loc 1648). The kingfisher clubs the bass to death (loc 1696). Their friend the
frog is seized by an eagle (loc 708).
Reconciliation
is tinged with the bitterness. The mouse and his child find the elephant, the
seal and the house again but the house is occupied by Manny Rat (loc 1784).
Like Toad of Toad Hall, and the heroes of Lord
of the Rings out protagonists here find the enemy at home.
There is
risk-taking. The moue and child and their friends fight a battle with the rats
at the end and manoeuvre the house from a platform on the roof of a passing
train- thereby expelling the rats form the dump (loc 1999). Manny Rat survives
and remains. However, he is picked up and dropped and thereby loses his teeth.
He is finished. He rises again as he seeks to destroy the house the friends
have allowed him to rewire (loc 2280).
There is an
upbeat ending. The house, The Last Visible Dog, becomes a seat of learning as
well as an inn for migratory birds. Manny Rat becomes a very respected teacher.
Is the sophisticated
language and literary style at times too complex for the child reader? “Though perhaps a little taller, she
has never really been above him” says the elephant (loc 2056).
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