The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne.
Title: The House at Pooh Corner.
Author: A.A. Milne.
Genre: Fiction, literature, YA, children's lit, animals, fantasy.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1928.
Summary: In the sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh, Pooh and his friends (with the bouncy new addition - Tigger!) go through another handful of wonderful adventures. From building a house for Eeyore on a snowy day to being buried inside Owl's house on a windy one, from discovering what Tiggers do and do not eat and can and cannot do to playing a new game in the river, things are never dull in The Hundred Acre Wood! And in one of the most astoundingly deep and touching moments in children's literature, Christopher Robin says goodbye to Pooh, and his childhood.
My rating: 10/10.
My review: There are some books that when you sit down to write a review for them, it seems redundant and unnecessary. This is one of those books. There is nothing about this book, or Pooh himself, that is not absolutely perfect. I loved the first Pooh book, but this one is undeniably its superior. From the first, with the dedication
The last scene, where Christopher Robin says goodbye to Pooh and, by extension, his childhood, I believe to be one of the most human, heart-breakingly stunning moments in literature.
From Dedication and Introduction:
♥
You gave me Christopher Robin, and then
You breathed new life in Pooh.
Whatever of each has left my pen
Goes homing back to you.
My book is ready, and comes to greet
The mother it longs to see -
It would be my present to you, my sweet,
If it weren't your gift to me.
♥ No, you see, we have lost it. It was the best, I think. Well, here are some of the other ones, all that we shall remember now. But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there... and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.
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♥ One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing. It was still snowing as he stumped over the white forest track, and he expected to find Piglet warming his toes in front of his fire, but to his surprise he saw that the door was open, and the more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn't there.
♥ He looked up at his clock, which had stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago.
"Nearly eleven o'clock," said Pooh happily. "You're just in time for a little smackerel of something," and he put his head into the cupboard. "And then we'll go out, Piglet, and sing my song to Eeyore."
"Which song, Pooh?"
"The one we're going to sing to Eeyore," explained Pooh.
♥ "I don't know how it is, Christopher Robin, but what with all this snow and one thing and another, not to mention icicles and such-like, it isn't so Hot in my field about three o'clock in the morning as some people this it is. It isn't Close, if you know what I mean - not so as to be uncomfortable. It isn't Stuffy. In fact, Christopher Robin, he went on in a loud whisper, "quite-between-outselves-and-don't-tell-anybody, it's Cold."
"Oh, Eeyore!"
"And I said to myself: The others will be sorry if I'm getting myself all cold. They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think, but if it goes on snowing for another six weeks or so, one of them will begin to say to himself: 'Eeyore can't be so very much too Hot about three o'clock in the morning." And then it will Get About. And they'll be Sorry."
♥ "I'm Pooh," said Pooh.
"I'm Tigger," said Tigger.
"Oh!" said Pooh, for he had never seen an animal like this before. "Does Christopher Robin know about you?"
"Of course he does," said Tigger.
"Well," said Pooh, "it's the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep. And tomorrow morning we'll have some honey for breakfast. Do Tiggers like honey?"
"They like everything," said Tigger cheerfully.
"Then if they like going to sleep on the floor, I'll go back to bed," said Pooh, "ad we'll do things in the morning. Good night." And he got back into bed and went fast asleep.
♥ Poor explained to Eeyore that Tigger was a great friend of Christopher Robin's, who had come to stay in the Forest, and Piglet explained to Tigger that he mustn't mind what Eeyore said because he was always gloomy; and Eeyore explained to Piglet that, on the contrary, he was feeling particularly cheerful this morning; and Tigger explained to anybody who was listening that he hadn't any breakfast yet.
♥
What shall we do about
poor little Tigger?
If he never eats nothing
he'll never get bigger.
He doesn't like honey and haycorns
and thistles
Because of the taste and because of
the bristles.
And all the good things which an
animal likes
Have the wrong sort of swallow or
too many spikes.
...But whatever his weight in pounds,
shillings, and ounces,
He always seems bigger
because of his bounces.
"And that's the whole poem," he said. "Do you like it, Piglet?"
"All except the shillings," said Piglet. "I don't think they ought to be there."
"They wanted to come in after the pounds," explained Pooh, "so I let them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come."
"Oh, I didn't know," said Piglet.
♥ ...Kanga said very kindly, "Well, look in my cupboard, Tigger dear, and see what you'd like." Because she knew at once that, however big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.
♥ And he found a small tin of condensed milk, and something seemed to tell him that Tigger didn't like this, so he took it into a corner by itself, and went with it to see that nobody interrupted it.
♥ And he write it down in his head like this:
Order of Looking for Things
1. Special Place. (To find Piglet.)
2. Piglet. (To find who Small is.)
3. Small. (To find Small.)
4. Rabbit. (To tell him I've found Small.)
5. Small again. (To tell him I've found Rabbit.)
♥ The next moment the day became very bothering indeed, because Pooh was so busy not looking where he was going that he stepped on a piece of the Forest which had been left out by mistake; and he only just had time to think to himself: "I'm flying. What Owl does. I wonder how you stop -" when he stopped.
Bump!
♥ And he thought, "I haven't seen Roo for a long time, and if I don't see him today it will be a still longer time."
♥ I could spend a happy morning
Seeing Roo,
I could spend a happy morning
Being Pooh.
For it doesn't seem to matter,
If I don't get any fatter
(And I don't get any fatter)
What I do.
Oh, I like his way of talking,
Yes, I do.
It's the nicest way of talking
Just for two.
And a Help-yourself with Rabbit
Through it may become a habit,
Is a pleasant sort of habit
For a Pooh.
I could spend a happy morning
Seeing Piglet.
And I couldn't spend a happy morning
Not seeing Piglet.
And it doesn't seem to matter
If I don't see Owl and Eeyore
(or any of the others),
And I'm not going to see Owl or Eeyore
(or any of the others)
Or Christopher Robin.
Written down, like this, it doesn't seem a very good song, but coming through pale fawn fluff at about half-past eleven on a very sunny morning, it seemed to Pooh to be one of the best songs he had ever sung. So he went on singing it.
♥ "Hallo, Piglet," said Pooh.
"Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet, giving a jump of surprise. "I knew it was you."
"Do did I," said Pooh. "What are you doing?"
"I'm planting a haycorn, Pooh, so that it can grow up into an oak-tree, and have lots of haycorns just outside the front door instead of having to walk miles and miles, do you see, Pooh?"
"Supposing it doesn't?" said Pooh.
"It will, because Christopher Robin says it will, so that's why I'm planting it."
"Well," said Pooh, "if I plant a honeycomb outside my house, then it will grow up into a beehive."
Piglet wasn't quite sure about this.
"Or a piece of a honeycomb," said Pooh, "so as not to waste too much. Only then I might only get a piece of a beehive, and it might be the wrong piece, where the bees were buzzing and not hunnying. Bother."
♥ "But we mustn't stop now, or we shall be late."
"Late for what?"
"For whatever we want to be in time for," said Tigger, hurrying on.
♥ "Piglet," said Pooh solemnly, when he had heard all this, "what shall we do?" And he began to eat Tigger's sandwiches.
♥ "I thought," said Piglet earnestly, "that if Eeyore stood at the bottom of the tree, and if Pooh stood on Eeyore's back, and if I stood on Pooh's shoulders -"
"And if Eeyore's back snapped suddenly, then we could all laugh. Ha ha! Amusing in a quiet way," said Eeyore, "but not really helpful."
..."Would it break your back, Eeyore?" asked Pooh, very much surprised.
"That's what would be so interesting, Pooh. Not being quite sure till afterwards."
♥ ...held the corner of the tunic next to him and smiled happily at him. And Eeyore whispered back: "I'm not saying there won't be an Accident now, mind you. They're funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you're having them."
♥ "Come on, it's easy!" squeaked Roo. And suddenly Tigger found how easy it was.
"Ow!" he shouted as the tree flew past him.
♥ Before he had gone very far he heard a noise. So he stopped and listened. This was the noise.
NOISE, BY POOH
Oh, the butterflies are flying,
Now the winter days are dying,
And the primroses are trying
To be seen.
And the turtle-doves are cooing,
And the woods are up and doing,
For the violets are blue-ing
In the green.
Oh, the honey-bees are gumming
On their little wings, and humming
That the summer, which is coming,
Will be fun.
And the cows are almost cooing,
And the turtle-doves are mooing,
Which is why a Pooh is poohing
In the sun.
For the spring is really springing;
You can see a skylark singing,
And the blue-bells, which are ringing,
Can be heard.
And the cuckoo isn't cooing,
But's he's cucking and he's ooing,
And a Pooh is simply poohing
Like a bird.
♥ "Well, I sort of made it up," said Pooh. "It isn't Brain," he went on humbly, "because You Know Why, Rabbit; but it comes to me sometimes."
"Ah!" said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them.
♥ Rabbit looked at him severely.
"I don't think you're helping," he said.
"No," said Pooh. "I do try," he added humbly.
♥ By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day." But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.
♥ "But, Eeyore," said Pooh in distress, "what can we- I mean, how shall we- do you think if we-"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "One of those would be just the thing. Thank you, Pooh."
♥ Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
♥ "But, Eeyore," said Pooh, "was it a Joke, or an Accident? I mean-"
"I didn't stop to ask, Pooh. Even at the very bottom of the river I didn't stop to say to myself, 'Is this a Hearty Joke, or is it the Merest Accident?' I just floated to the surface, and said to myself, 'It's wet.' If you know what I mean."
♥ Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn't matter a bit, as it didn't on such a happy afternoon, and he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn't quite sure about some of it.
♥ "Tigger is all right really," said Piglet lazily.
"Of course he is," said Christopher Robin.
"Everybody is really," said Pooh. "That's what I think," said Pooh. "But I don't suppose I'm right," he said. "Of course you are," said Christopher Robin.
♥ It was a drowsy summer afternoon, and the Forest was full of gentle sounds, which all seemed to be saying to Pooh, "Don't listen to Rabbit, listen to me."So he got into a comfortable position for not listening to Rabbit, and from time to time he opened his eyes to say, "Ah!" and then closed them again to say "True," and from time to time Rabbit said, "You see what I mean, Piglet," very earnestly, and Piglet nodded earnestly to show that he did.
♥ Piglet gave Pooh a stiffening sort of nudge, and Pooh, who felt more and more that he was somewhere else, got up slowly and began to look for himself.
♥ At first Pooh and Rabbit and Piglet walked together, and Tigger ran round them in circles, and then, when the path got narrower, Rabbit, Piglet and Pooh walked one after another, and Tigger ran round them in oblongs, and by-and-by, when the gorse got very prickly on each side of the path, Tigger ran up and down in front of them, and sometimes he bounced into Rabbit and sometimes he didn't.
♥ "Hallo!" said Tigger, and he sounded so close suddenly that Piglet would have jumped if Pooh hadn't accidentally been sitting on most of him.
♥ Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
"Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you."
♥ "How would it be," said Pooh slowly, "if, as soon as we're out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?"
"What the good of that?" said Rabbit.
"Well," said Pooh, "we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we'd be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren't looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really."
♥ Tigger was tearing round the Forest making loud yapping noises for Rabbit. And at last a very Small and Sorry Rabbit heard him. And the Small and Sorry Rabbit rushed through the mist at the noise, and it suddenly turned into Tigger; a Friendly Tigger, a Gran Tigger, a Large and Helpful Tigger, a Tigger who bounced, if he bounced at all, in just the beautiful way a Tigger ought to bounce.
♥ This warm and sunny Spot
Belongs to Pooh.
And here he wonders what
He's going to do.
Oh, bother, I forgot-
♥ "Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
♥ "We just came to see you," said Piglet. "And to see how your house was. Look, Pooh, it's still standing!"
"I know," said Eeyore. "Very odd. Somebody ought to have come down and pushed it over."
"We wondered whether the wind would blow it down," said Pooh.
"Ah, that's why nobody's bothered, I suppose. I thought perhaps they'd forgotten."
♥ "Pooh," said Piglet nervously.
"Yes?" said one of the chairs.
"Where are we?"
"I'm not quite sure," said the chair.
"Are we-are we in Owl's House?"
"I think so, because we were just going to have tea, and we hadn't had it."
"Oh!" said Piglet. "Well, did Owl always have a letter-box in his ceiling?"
"Has he?"
"Yes, look."
"I can't," said Pooh. "I'm face downwards under something, and that, Piglet, is a very bad position for looking at ceilings."
♥ I lay on my chest
And I thought it best
To pretend I was having an evening rest;
I lay on my tum
And I tried to hum
But nothing particular seemed to come.
My face was flat
On the door, and that
Is all very well for an acrobat;
But it doesn't seem fair
To a Friendly Bear
To stiffen him out with a basket-chair.
And a sort of sqooze
Which grows and grows
Is not too nice to his poor old nose,
And a sort of squch
Is much too much
For his neck and his mouth
and his ears and such.
♥ Pooh sat on the floor which had once been a wall, and gazed up at the ceiling which had once been another wall, with a front door in it which had once been a front door, and tried to give him mind to it.
♥ "And there Piglet is," said Owl. "If the string doesn't break."
"Supposing it does?" asked Piglet, wanting to know.
"Then we try another piece of string."
This was not very comforting to Piglet, because however many pieces of string they tried pulling up with, it would always be the same him coming down; but still, it did seem the only thing to do. So with one last look back in his mind at all the happy hours he had spent in the Forest not being pulled up to the ceiling by a piece of string, Piglet nodded bravely at Pooh and said that it was a Very Clever pup-pup-pup Clever pup-pup Plan.
♥ "But it isn't Easy," said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl's House. "Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you."
♥ "It's your fault, Eeyore. You've never been to see any of us. You just stay here in this one corner of the Forest waiting for the other to come to you. Why don't you go to them sometimes?"
♥ "Did I really do all that?" he said at last.
"Well," said Pooh, "in poetry-in a piece of poetry-well, you did it, Piglet, because the poetry says you did. And that's how people know."
"Oh!" said Piglet. "Because I-I thought I did blinch a little. Just at first. And it says, 'Did he blinch no no.' That's why."
"You only blinched inside," said Pooh, "and that's the bravest way for a Very Small Animal not to blinch that there is."
Piglet sighed with happiness, and began to think about himself. He was BRAVE.
♥ Christopher Robin was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why he knew that Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt that it was happening at last.
♥ He coughed in an important way, and began again: "What-nots and Etceteras, before I begin, or perhaps I should say, before I end, I have a piece of Poetry to read to you. Hitherto-hitherto-a long word meaning-well, you'll see what it means directly-hitherto, as I was saying, all the Poetry in the Forest has been written by Pooh, a Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain. The Poem which I am now about to read to you was written by Eeyore, or Myself, in a Quiet Moment. If somebody will take Roo's bull's-eye away from him, and wake up Owl, we shall all be able to enjoy it. I call it-POEM."
This was it.
Christopher Robin is going.
At least I think he is.
Where?
Nobody knows.
But he is going-
I mean he goes
(To rhyme with "knows")
Do we care?
(To rhyme with "where")
We do
Very much.
(I haven't got a rhyme for that
"is" in the second line yet.
Bother.)
(Now I haven't got a rhyme for bother. Bother.)
Those two bothers will have
to rhyme with each other
Buther.
The fact is this is more difficult
than I thought,
I ought-
(Very good indeed)
I ought
To begin again,
Bit it is easier
To stop.
Christopher Robin, good-bye,
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends-
I mean all your friend
Send-
(Very awkward this, it keeps
going wrong)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love
END.
♥ "It's much better than mine," said Pooh admiringly, and he really thought it was.
"Well," explained Eeyore modestly, "it was meant to be."
♥ "I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing."
"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh again.
"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
♥ And by-and-by Christopher Robin came to an end of the things, and was silent, and he sat there looking out over the world, and wishing it wouldn't stop.
♥ "So, perhaps," he said sadly to himself, "Christopher Robin won't tell me any more," and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant that you just went on being faithful without being told things.
♥ Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world, with his chin in his hands, called out "Pooh!"
"Yes?" said Pooh.
"When I'm-when-Pooh!"
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."
"Never again?"
"Well, not so much. They don't let you."
Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.
"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh hopefully.
"Pooh, when I'm-you know-when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?"
"Just Me?"
"Yes, Pooh."
"Will you be here too?"
"Yes, Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be, Pooh."
"That's good," said Pooh.
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."
Pooh thought for a little.
"How old shall I be then?"
"Ninety-nine."
Pooh nodded.
"I promise," he said.
Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I-if I'm not quite-" he stopped and tried again - "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"
"Understand what?"
"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"
"Where?" said Pooh.
"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.
* * *
So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.