(this blog should be temporarily retitled "Next mood swing in 5...4...3..")

I'm going to talk about comfort right now. Specifically, comfort reading.

Last night, I pulled a book off my shelf. It is the one that I keep on hand, almost like those "in case of fire, break glass" things that used to be in every hallway. When I'm fed up with people or the vagaries of the world or what seems to be just random sadness that happens, I tend to revert to re-reading childhood books.

This book is one I've had for a good long time. It's not well-known, and from what I've been able to determine, is totally out of print. It's called "The House at the End of the Lane" and is published by Green Tiger Press.

I bought this book back in the early '80s sometime. Maybe even '82, the year it was published. I would have been a young teenager at the time.

I remember buying the book at a 1/2 price sale at one of the shops in the town where I grew up - it was called "The Land of Make-Believe" or something like that. It was one of those weird gift shops that carried a little of everything - they had the Smurfs, and Steiff bears, and books, and some other small toys, and cards, and candy I think, and I also think they did balloon bouquets, and they also had a few incongruous "adult" items up on high shelves. (I always found that disturbing, as a teenager. I still would, to be honest. There's something not right to me about seeing Muppets and teddy bears and Suzy's Zoo cards in the same shop as imitation penii.)

Anyway. I had looked at the book a few times but was never able to justify buying it before - it was, after all, very clearly a CHILDREN'S book and I was somewhere between 12 and 14 at the time. It was also about $10 and although I received an allowance, it wasn't much. But when the sale came around, I bought it and took it home.

It's a very simple story - nothing too much happens in the book. A kangaroo character joins a "family" made up of various dolls and toys (in the drawings they are very obviously animated stuffed animals). One of the characters, a dog, is a poet. There's a bear who is sort of the father figure who is involved in a lot of local-benificence type things. The mother-figure is a doll who is an excellent cook and who paints water colors. There's a rabbit master-gardener, and then there's Bartholomew Kangaroo, who's brought into the family after an (apparently amnesia-inducing; we never learn his past history) accident on the path. The few bad things that have the potential to happen are averted simply (and somewhat deus-ex-machina): a nasty person is won over by beauty; the check that Chester Dog wins in a poetry contest buys land necessary to avert a planned roadway demolishing the house's gardens. If someone gets sick or injured, they recover completely after a few days' bed rest and good food.

It's a very simple world - perhaps one that, in reality, would be boring to live in. And yet - it's a book I keep returning to, time and again, when I feel overwhelmed by what happens in the outside world. And what a lovely alternate reality the book paints - that people without family are welcomed with open arms into one, that everyone has a valuable talent that can help the group but also be fulfilling to them. That unpleasantness is best dealt with using a sort of firm kindness. That life is a series of small celebrations, preferably with cake and tea. Everyone has time for what they love best to do, and time to listen to the concerns and dreams of others. People are considerate - when Bear goes into town, he asks if anyone else needs for him to pick anything up for them.

It's also a low-tech world. There isn't a refrigerator in the kitchen - everything is kept cold in a spring house (is that even possible?). No one drives; everyone walks where they need to go. Food is delivered from the grocery. (I think a very interesting Master's thesis or even dissertation could come, if one's not already been done, on the obvious LACK of technology in 20th century classic fantasy literature - look at the Moominland tales, look at Winnie-the-Pooh, even look at Narnia and Tolkein's work...not an automobile or refrigerator or radio or even, apparently, gas stove to be found in any of them).

I don't know where I'm going with this, exactly - just, it's a book I love. It kind of amazes me now that I bought it as a young teenager - I was sort of desperate to look grown-up and sophisticated even though I was deeply suspicious of the newfound sophistication of some of my friends. (As I said somewhere else: I was good at being a child. I am moderately good at being an adult. I was not at all good at being a teenager.) I was loath to abandon the "good things" of childhood - playing, and having stuffed animals, and reading children's books (sometime I will tell you about my startling entry into the world of "grown-up" books- the book I chose, inadvertently, turned out to be quite explicit and almost put me off reading anything intended for anyone older than 14 forever). The book was almost totemic for me - it was the "last" children's book I bought (well, while I was still actually 'a child;' when I was in graduate school I started buying them again because I realized no one could say anything to me about it without looking like a busybody). I remember hiding in my room all one summer afternoon and reading the whole book at once. And feeling almost a little guilty about it - here I was, enjoying a book that seemed to be written for seven-year-olds at the oldest.

But it's a beautiful book. It has color plates that are tipped in here and there, and even if they're nothing I'd frame and hang on my wall, I still like them. And it has maps - a floorplan of the house and a map of the house and gardens inside the back cover. I've always loved that - the little impedimentia that come with an imaginary world. (I also used to draw maps and floor plans for my own little imaginary worlds). It's a deeply comforting book, and I slept better last night for having reread parts of it. (I have to be careful not to re-read it too often; I fear it will eventually lose its magic for me.)