Arnold Zwicky's Blog

… all fictional, unimaginably different, each one moving in its own way; welcome to the queen of the months, here in the northern hemisphere, where, on this celebratory day, the rabbits — 🐇 🐇 🐇 — come to play

Ir starts with a burlesque of the nursery rhyme “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” in yesterday’s posting “The server’s absurd attentions”, which led Benita Bendon Campbell to Kipling’s heartbreaking short story with that title. That led me to Saki’s black-comic short story “Sredni Vashtar”. And that to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s novel of healing and the overcoming of adversity, The Secret Garden.  Finally, Bergman’s long masterpiece movie, Fanny and Alexander, which pretty much has everything, including some early luminous scenes of  family joy, then wrenching scenes of abuse, and finally horrific dream death made real, freeing the children. (There are two versions, a shorter one made for tv, then the full, epically long, theatrical release. Watching the long version is like packing up your mind and moving to another — fabulous but perilous —  country for some undetermined number of years; it took me several days to recover my bearings.  The only thing I can compare it to is reading García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.)

This will be a long posting, because it will have four extended plot summaries. The details are important.

Kipling, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”. From Wikipedia:

a semi-autobiographical short story by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1888.

The story deals with the unkind treatment that Kipling received between the ages of 6 and 11 in a foster home in Southsea. This subject is also discussed in the novel The Light That Failed published in 1890, and occupies most of the first chapter of his autobiography Something of Myself published in 1937.

Kipling and his younger sister are named Punch and Judy in this story. Following established custom for English families living in India, the Kipling parents sent their children to stay in England (in this case, in a foster home) for several years. Judy was treated warmly, but Punch was miserably abused and driven to a point of murderous and suicidal desperation. He also became nearly blind at this time.

Saki, “Sredni Vashtar”. From Wikipedia:

a short story by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), written between 1900 and 1911 and first published in his 1911 short story collection The Chronicles of Clovis..

… Plot. Conradin, a sickly 10-year-old boy, lives in the care of his despised, overbearing and controlling cousin Mrs De Ropp. He relies on his vivid imagination not only to keep him strong enough to survive, but also to serve as his escape from the real world. Rebelling against Mrs De Ropp’s oppressive care, Conradin secretly keeps two animals in an unused garden shed: a hen, which he adores, and a polecat-ferret, which he fears and keeps locked in a hutch. Gradually, Conradin begins to venerate the ferret as a god, naming it “Sredni Vashtar”. He worships it weekly, bringing offerings of flowers and berries, and stolen nutmeg for special occasions.

Mrs De Ropp grows concerned over Conradin’s visits to the shed. She discovers the hen and sells it. She announces the sale to Conradin, expecting a protest, but to her surprise the boy does not respond. But in secret, he changes his worshipping rituals and asks of his god an unnamed boon: “Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar”.

When Conradin’s visits to the shed do not cease, Mrs De Ropp investigates further, and discovers the locked hutch. Suspecting guinea pigs, she ransacks his room, finds the key, and goes down to the shed, forbidding Conradin to leave the house. While she is gone, Conradin slowly begins to accept defeat, knowing that his god was not real and that his cousin will come out of the shed in triumph. But when Mrs De Ropp fails to reappear after some time, Conradin begins to chant a song of victory. Eventually he sees the ferret emerge from the shed, with dark wet stains around its jaws and throat. It passes out into the garden.

A sour-faced maid announces tea and asks for Mrs De Ropp. Conradin tells her that she has gone to the shed and makes himself a piece of buttered toast. As he enjoys his toast, there are screams from the maid, calls for help from the kitchen staff, and later the sound of something heavy being carried into the house. As voices discuss fervently who should break the news to the boy, Conradin calmly makes himself another piece of toast.

Burnett, The Secret Garden. From Wikipedia:

a children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English children’s literature.

… Plot summary. At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in British India to wealthy, self-indulgent British parents. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who spoil her and allow her to become aggressive, self-centred and unpleasant. After a cholera epidemic kills her parents, Mary is left alone when the few surviving servants flee.

Mary is discovered by British soldiers who place her in the care of an English clergyman, whose children taunt her by calling her “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrry”. She is sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven, husband of her father’s sister Lilias. He lives on the Yorkshore Moors” in a large English country house, Misselthwaite Manor. On arrival, Mary discovers that Lilias is dead and that Archibald is a hunchback.

At first, Mary remains angry and defiant. She dislikes her new home, the people living in it, who do not pander to her as she was in India, and, most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. Over time, however, she becomes healthier and less cantankerous. She befriends her maid, Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about Lilias, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Lilias died after an accident in the garden ten years previously, and the devastated Archibald locked the garden and buried the key.

Mary becomes interested in finding the secret garden herself, and her manners begin to soften as a result. Soon, she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly European robin. Her health and attitude improve.

The robin draws Mary’s attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here she finds the key to the locked garden. After her first day exploring, she asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother, who spends most of his time out on the moors. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells him about the secret garden.

One night, Mary follows mysterious cries that echo through the house. She is startled to find a boy of her own age, Colin, living in a hidden bedroom. She discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Archibald Craven. Colin suffers from fevers and is confined to bed, believed to be unable to walk. Like Mary, he has grown very spoiled, with servants obeying his every whim in order to prevent his hysterical temper tantrums. Mary visits Colin every day that week, distracting him from his troubles and despondency with stories of the moor, Dickon, and the secret garden. She eventually confides to Colin that she has access to the secret garden, and he asks to see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside, the first time he has been outdoors for several years.

In the garden, the children are surprised to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled to see the children, he admits that he believed Colin to be “a cripple,” with a crooked back and crooked legs. Furious at Ben’s comments, Colin rises shakily from his chair and finds that he can stand, although his legs are weak from long disuse. Mary and Dickon spend almost every day in the garden with Colin and encourage him to attempt walking. Gradually, Colin finds renewed hope for his future. Together, the children and Ben conspire to keep Colin’s recovering health a secret from the other staff, hoping to surprise his father who is travelling abroad.

As his son’s health has improved, Archibald has been experiencing an improvement in his own spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden. When he receives a letter from Dickon and Martha’s mother, advising him to return to Misselthwaite, he takes the opportunity to come home. Walking around the garden wall, he is startled to hear voices inside. He finds the door unlocked and is astonished to see the garden in full bloom and his son restored to health, having just won a race against Mary. The children tell their story, explaining the restoration of both the garden and Colin. Archibald and his son walk back to the manor together, to the amazement of the servants.

Bergman, Fanny and Alexander. From Wikipedia:

a 1982 epic period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the children’s father (Allan Edwall), their mother (Ewa Fröling) remarries a prominent bishop (Jan Malmsjö) who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.

… Plot. n 1907, young Alexander, his sister Fanny, and their well-to-do family, the Ekdahls, live in a Swedish town, running a moderately profitable theatre. At Christmastime, the Ekdahls hold a Nativity play and later a large lively Christmas party. The siblings’ parents, Emilie and Oscar, are happily married, with Oscar managing the theatre on behalf of the matriarch, Helena Ekdahl. Helena, a widow, reminisces humorously with long-time family friend, Isak Jacobi, about the time her husband caught them in flagrante delicto in an embrace, fondly remembering how their friendships endured. The siblings’ womanizing uncle, Gustav Adolf, carries on with the nursemaid, Maj, with the forbearance of his wife, Alma, who jokes with the women in the family about her husband’s latest fling. The siblings’ other uncle, Carl, privately bemoans himself humorlessly as a failure to his tolerant wife, Lydia. The joyful Christmas festivities at the Ekdahls abruptly end when Oscar suddenly dies from a stroke.

Shortly thereafter, Emilie marries Edvard Vergérus, the local bishop and a widower, who supported Emilie in her deep grief, advantageously pressing his suit. Emilie and her children move into the Vergérus home where he lives with his mother, sister, aunt, and maids. The children’s stepfather, the bishop Edvard, soon reveals himself to be a strict and controlling authoritarian. The relationship between the bishop and Alexander is especially cold, as Alexander invents stories, for which Edvard punishes him severely. Quickly realizing her mistake, Emilie asks for a divorce, which Edvard will not consent to; though she may leave the marriage, this would be legally considered desertion, placing the children in his custody. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ekdahl family has begun to worry about their condition, and Emilie secretly visits her former mother-in-law, Helena, revealing she is pregnant.

During Emilie’s absence, Edvard confines the children to their bedroom, ostensibly for their safety. There, Alexander shares a story, claiming he was visited by the ghosts of the Vergérus’s children, who revealed the bishop was responsible for their deaths. The maid Justina reports the story to Edvard, who responds with corporal punishment. After Emilie returns, the Ekdahl family friend, Isak Jacobi, helps smuggle the children from the house. They live temporarily with Isak and his nephews in their store.

Emilie’s former brothers-in-law confront Edvard to negotiate a divorce, using the children, the bishop’s debts, and the threat of a public scandal for leverage, but Edvard is unmoved. Emilie, now in the later stages of her pregnancy and still living with Vergérus, refuses to restore the children to Edvard’s home. Emilie manipulates Edvard into drinking a large dosage of her bromide sedative from her cup. As the medication takes effect, she explains to him that she intends to flee the home as he sleeps. He drowsily threatens to follow her family and ruin their lives but falls unconscious. After Emilie escapes, Edvard’s dying Aunt Elsa accidentally overturns a gas lamp, setting her bedclothes, nightgown, and hair on fire. Engulfed in flames, she runs through the house, seeking Edvard’s help, but he, too, is set aflame. Although partially incapacitated by the sedative, he disentangles himself from Aunt Elsa, but he is badly burned and dies shortly thereafter.

Alexander had fantasised about his stepfather’s death while living with Isak and his nephews, Aron and Ismael Retzinsky. The mysterious Ismael explains that fantasy can become true as he dreams it.

The Ekdahl family reunites for the christening celebration of Emilie’s and the late bishop’s daughter as well as the extra-marital daughter of Alexander’s uncle, Gustav Adolf, and the maid, Maj. Alexander encounters the ghost of the bishop who knocks him to the floor, and tells him, “You can never escape me.” Emilie, having inherited the theatre, hands Helena a copy of August Strindberg’s play A Dream Play to read and tells her that they should perform it together onstage. Initially scoffing at the idea and declaring Strindberg a “misogynist,” Helena takes to the idea and begins reading it to a sleeping Alexander.

This entry was posted on June 1, 2026 at 9:49 am and is filed under Books, Childhood, Movies and tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.