Book Review: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
My friend Fred, who works as a publisher, recently asked in a Tweet if people would be more interested in a story in which: a) Interesting things happen to an uninteresting character, or b) An interesting character does uninteresting things. This interested me because I was just about finished with "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" by L. Frank Baum.
Have you ever read a book where the main character does exactly nothing throughout the course of the story? I mean nothing at all. Everything in this book happens to or around the main character (called simply “Claus”), but not by or of him.
As a quick summery: The book starts off much like “The Jungle Book”, with a group of woodland-dwelling fairies finding an abandoned baby, and deciding to raise him. Claus becomes friends with all the “immortals”, including the Master Woodsman, the Great Ak. While a young man, ignorant of the world of men, Clause accompanies Ak on a tour of nearby towns, and becomes concerned at how miserable all the children seem. He vows to spend his life helping them, and after giving a girl a carving of a cat, he hits on the idea of delivering toys. As he grows old, the immortals decide to grant him “The Cloak of Immortality” so that he can keep giving toys to children forever.
In “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus”, Claus, despite being the main character, has two notes to play: I like children, and I make toys. That’s it. He neither is, nor does, anything else. When problems arise, Claus’s response is basically, As long as it doesn’t inconvenience me. Every conflict is taken care of by his immortal friends. Examples:
1. When Claus leaves the forest where he was raised by fairies, he is told to make his home in “The Laughing Valley”. Upon coming to the empty valley, Claus is depressed that now he will have to build his own home, and farm to provide his own food, so he won’t be able to do anything to help the children. Resolution: The fairies magically build him a fully-furnished house overnight, and continuously provide him with fresh food whenever he wants it.
2. The “Awgwas” (bad evil spirits) decide they don’t like how Claus makes children happy with his toys, so they start stealing the toys out of his hands whenever he leaves his house. While this saddens him, Claus simply decides that he’ll just have to stop going out and delivering toys. Resolution: The immortals fight the Awgwas, and kill all of them.
3. A huge snow fall traps Claus inside his house, once again impeding his desire to deliver toys. Claus’s response is to simply not go out in the snow. Resolution: Two of his deer friends offer to haul him over the snowdrifts on a sleigh, and he takes them up.
4. After a few years of delivering toys, Claus comes across a house where the chimney leads not to a fireplace, but to a stove in the basement, meaning he can not deliver the toys. Claus’s response it to simply skip delivering toys to that house, and any other without a chimney, for several years. Resolution: One of his fairy friends suggests that he (the fairy) can simply walk through the walls of such houses, and deliver the toys.
In every one of these cases, Claus is stopped from performing his major goal, to deliver toys. But in every case, he simply ignores it. He doesn’t fight back against the Awgwas, he doesn’t try to brave through the snow storm, he just forgets about children he has no easy way of getting to.
Overall, I’m not too sure how to feel about the book. It was at least mildly entertaining, but it really didn’t seem to go anywhere. And many of Baum’s attempts to interject every aspect of Christmastime (hanging stockings, Christmas tress, etc) felt very forced. I know this is technically a book for children, but so were the Oz books, and at least they had interesting protagonists.
Final vote: C+
Have you ever read a book where the main character does exactly nothing throughout the course of the story? I mean nothing at all. Everything in this book happens to or around the main character (called simply “Claus”), but not by or of him.
As a quick summery: The book starts off much like “The Jungle Book”, with a group of woodland-dwelling fairies finding an abandoned baby, and deciding to raise him. Claus becomes friends with all the “immortals”, including the Master Woodsman, the Great Ak. While a young man, ignorant of the world of men, Clause accompanies Ak on a tour of nearby towns, and becomes concerned at how miserable all the children seem. He vows to spend his life helping them, and after giving a girl a carving of a cat, he hits on the idea of delivering toys. As he grows old, the immortals decide to grant him “The Cloak of Immortality” so that he can keep giving toys to children forever.
In “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus”, Claus, despite being the main character, has two notes to play: I like children, and I make toys. That’s it. He neither is, nor does, anything else. When problems arise, Claus’s response is basically, As long as it doesn’t inconvenience me. Every conflict is taken care of by his immortal friends. Examples:
1. When Claus leaves the forest where he was raised by fairies, he is told to make his home in “The Laughing Valley”. Upon coming to the empty valley, Claus is depressed that now he will have to build his own home, and farm to provide his own food, so he won’t be able to do anything to help the children. Resolution: The fairies magically build him a fully-furnished house overnight, and continuously provide him with fresh food whenever he wants it.
2. The “Awgwas” (bad evil spirits) decide they don’t like how Claus makes children happy with his toys, so they start stealing the toys out of his hands whenever he leaves his house. While this saddens him, Claus simply decides that he’ll just have to stop going out and delivering toys. Resolution: The immortals fight the Awgwas, and kill all of them.
3. A huge snow fall traps Claus inside his house, once again impeding his desire to deliver toys. Claus’s response is to simply not go out in the snow. Resolution: Two of his deer friends offer to haul him over the snowdrifts on a sleigh, and he takes them up.
4. After a few years of delivering toys, Claus comes across a house where the chimney leads not to a fireplace, but to a stove in the basement, meaning he can not deliver the toys. Claus’s response it to simply skip delivering toys to that house, and any other without a chimney, for several years. Resolution: One of his fairy friends suggests that he (the fairy) can simply walk through the walls of such houses, and deliver the toys.
In every one of these cases, Claus is stopped from performing his major goal, to deliver toys. But in every case, he simply ignores it. He doesn’t fight back against the Awgwas, he doesn’t try to brave through the snow storm, he just forgets about children he has no easy way of getting to.
Overall, I’m not too sure how to feel about the book. It was at least mildly entertaining, but it really didn’t seem to go anywhere. And many of Baum’s attempts to interject every aspect of Christmastime (hanging stockings, Christmas tress, etc) felt very forced. I know this is technically a book for children, but so were the Oz books, and at least they had interesting protagonists.
Final vote: C+