Prairie world
We've been listening to the "Little House on the Prairie" audiobooks in the car with the girls lately, and holy cow are they good!
Bear in mind that this comes from someone was mildly obsessed with the Little House books as a kid; who still owns the original yellow-packaged box set she was given at age 6 or so; who used to re-read the entire series about once a year (I also did this with the Narnia books and the Anne books).
But. It has been awhile since I read the Little House books. And now, actually listening to them for the first time, I am bowled over by Wilder's storytelling. Her simple, methodical, careful words draw you in, bit by bit, and you keep you wrapped up in her world. Whether it's a description of how Pa smokes venison and Ma churns butter and Mary sits outside a gopher hole for hours and hours, or how a fire races over the prairie and threatens to consume their house and Laura thinks they're all going to die...that is to say, the boring minutiae of life or truly adventuresome brush-with-death stuff...either way, the words keep you hooked. Everyone from my just-turned-4-year-old to my slightly-ADD-husband has been drawn in to these stories while we're going places in the car.
Side notes:
- With the exception of the lyrics to one really terrible song Pa plays on the fiddle about a "darky," the racial issues in these books are not too bad, considering they're set 150 years ago in the era of Manifest Destiny. The settler/Indian/white/native/colonization stuff in Little House on the Prairie is definitely there, but I felt it opened up a gateway for some good conversations with Beth, more than anything else.
- Pa is the embodiment of the original American dream. He's like a perfect libertarian poster boy--self-reliant, brave, skilled to survive anywhere he happens to be, unwilling to take hand-outs, cheerful, and a good dad.
- Farmer Boy is all about food. It's just descriptions of pie and doughnuts and ham and gravy, over and over again. Sure, there's a little bit of a plot in there, but it's also about food. A lot. Is that all Almanzo remembered about his childhood? Food and horses? It's a big contrast to the Ingalls' experience, where they were living for months at a time on wild game and cornmeal, whereas Almanzo sat down to huge and varied feasts three times a day. And if he got hungry in between he could always stuff his mouth full of doughnuts from the doughnut jar in the kitchen. (Eric, to me: "Why don't WE have a doughnut jar in the kitchen?") I'm wondering if there was a bit of nostalgia/romanticizing of the childhood in play when it came to the writing of this book--doesn't everything always seem better when you're an adult looking back? Like, the pecan praline ice cream cone my mom bought me after swimming lessons that summer when I was 8 or so were SO good. The best ice cream ever. And pecan praline ice cream now really doesn't do it for me. My other theory about the food in Farmer Boy is that it was written during the Great Depression--published in 1933--so both the author and the audience probably had a huge desire for these lavish, loving descriptions of yummy, yummy food.
- OK, final side note: these books exacerbate what Eric calls my prairie-hippie-muffin tendencies. They make me want to churn my own butter! And learn to spin wool! And eat carrots raw from the garden and contemplate how good and sweet and crunchy they are. We are having Fried Apples and Onions for dinner tonight. And maybe later Eric will let me pop a bunch of popcorn and see if it will fit into a glass of milk.
6 comments:
We have been listening to this series too! They are wonderful! I just dropped Farmer Boy off at the library and picked two more books to listen to.
After reading Little House in the Big Woods to my kids, I realized just how inept I really am. If the modern world comes to a crashing end, I'll be of no use to anyone. Was there nothing that Ma couldn't do?
I love those books on CD! I get all teary now about Ma waiting for Pa to come home in the big snow storm. I look at it from the perspective of a wife and mother now rather from Laura's, like I did when I was little. My kids are engrossed in these fabulous tails and Ethan want to have a pig and train his own oxen to pull a sled thanks to Almanzo!
I loved, loved, LOVED these books as a kid. I wanted my name to be Laura. I should re-read them.
If you want to learn to spin, I can help you out with that... just say the word!
Hey! I just started reading these to my kids.. maybe i should get them on CD--but I love all my kids' questions and interruptions. :) They were speculating tonight that the Ingalls must have made their underwear by killing and skinning an animal, cutting the fur into an underwear shape, and taping the sides like a diaper. :) Oh, and they were wondering if these are all true stories. Do you know? I figure it is based on her experiences, but maybe enhanced a bit? (I definitely don't remember so many details about my own childhood!)
I totally remember that popcorn and milk thing from when I read those books. I think about it everytime I have popcorn. Weird what random details stick with you.
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