Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

 Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren


 

Pippi Longstocking is a book for children… I guess. What am I doing writing about this, as a middle age man?  First and foremost, I have just been through this book- now, unfortunately a little after I celebrated the age of 10…but more important-this book is included by The Guardian critics and writers (among them Umberto Ecco) among the best 100 books ever written, together with Don Quixote at number one, Sense and Sensibility, War and Peace and 96 more. It seems that an effort was made to include as many writers and poets as possible, from different parts of the world, with some women writers added.  Paul Celan is included as a French-Romanian poet. From Africa we have Season of Migration to the North, Children of Gebelawi and Things Fall Apart. I was thrilled by the latter, enjoyed the former and wasn’t so impressed by the second.

Asia is represented by The Sound of the Mountain, Lu Xun and Other stories, the Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana.  I have started Bhagavad Gita, but did not like The Sound or Lu Xun too much. I loved Independent People, but gave up on Njals Saga.

 

There are a few “children’s books” on the list: Andersen’s stories and 1001 nights or The Arabian Tales as the British call them, together with Pippi. Huckleberry Finn might be somewhere in between, addressed to teenagers more than to children. I loved Huck Finn, but I am unimpressed by Pippi.

Proust mentioned “Les milles et une Nuits” in A La Recherche du Temps Perdu with admiration and affection.

Pippi is an extraordinary girl, but at times she is a bit too much out of the ordinary, or I am too old for her: I couldn’t help thinking what a nuisance would be to have someone come into the classroom and make a mess of things, or at a show.

I know, we should think out of the box, encourage diversity and exceptional behavior from outstanding personalities, but too often I have seen kids climbing up walls in trains, jumping around moving cars and doing all kinds of dangerous and annoying things in the name of educating them in a free spirit, encouraging and denying them things or rights. It is confusing for a man raised in another (forgone?) spirit of more respect, decency and perhaps a little too much constraint.

 

I admit that Pippi does some exceptionally good things, like saving small children, riding, fighting adults, but I tended to see also the darker side of an inflated ego, lack of deference for elders and disobedience in many instances : the teacher is addressed repeatedly in an improper (perhaps nowadays the only admitted) way.

 

It would have been a very different review if this book were read at the age of 10 or 12. I also pay the price of knowing that Pippi Longstocking is supposed to be one of the best 100 books ever written. It is not in my top 400 and if I manage to read 1,000 it will not be in that top either.   

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