Children's LiteratureAs well as being an acclaimed and beguiling novelist for adults, Alison Lurie is also a specialist in children's literature who is always on the look-out for subversive sub-texts which enhance the adult-approved narrative surfaces of a good many tales.
An earlier book, Don't Tell the Grown-Ups, begins with a declaration of faith in the exhilarating delinquencies of Tom Sawyer, and praise for anarchic antics, whether those of Dr Seuss (for example), or of children themselves let loose in the playground.
The title of the new Lurie collection of essays on children's books has a double meaning: it applauds the inexhaustible exuberance of childhood, as reflected in certain works of fiction; and it celebrates the irrepressible "childishness" of those authors who, like Peter Pan and his creator, refuse to embrace the grown-up state. They remain, instead, essentially and wonderfully juvenile, at least in some odd corner of their personalities.
This enables them to envisage marvels instead of morals - "There were seven old witches in tall black hats and long scarlet cloaks sitting round the table at a very good supper" - and devise scenarios coming down with spooks and crooks. You might think of John Masefield's spry Kay Harker stories, for example, in which travel "is by horse, carriage or broomstick", and the cast is bursting at the seams with Indians, mermaids, pirates, and articulate animals including Nibbens, "the nicest cat there is", who initiates the whole adventure.
Along with Masefield, his contemporary, Walter de la Mare, is the subject of one essay - Lurie would like to reinstate de la Mare, whose reputation is suffering an eclipse at present. For all their eloquence, the haunting elusiveness of his stories - such as The Wharf, The Riddle, and Maria-Fly - makes their atmosphere hard to pin down, like wisps of wood smoke drifting over a field. The door ajar is one of de la Mare's motifs: "It is always dangerous - leaving doors ajar," says the heroine of The Wharf. You never know what force might creep in, or what might be lurking to entice you out.
The metaphorical "door ajar" - or opened book - provides the means by which you may find yourself immersed in the flamboyance of Oz, or the darkness of Chup. The imaginary locations of children's literature, all the secret gardens, enchanted forests, flying classrooms or what-have-you, can be malign or benign, but they are always intriguing. "Stories make trouble" Alison Lurie quotes, from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.
They stir things up, pile mystery on top of metaphor, and leave you with an enriched perception of the ways of the world. Well, some do: often those that attain the "classic" status.
These lively essays disclose some parallels and paradoxes of the genre, from the proto-feminist Louisa May Alcott, caving in to the demands of popular fiction with her "Little" this and that, to Hans Anderson equating himself with an ugly duckling and John Masefield being a prey to seasickness.
Incidentally, Masefield, in the grip of his "Sea Fever", asks for a tall ship, not a tail ship; and his mother died when he was six, not 16. The heroes of Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz are pursued by an animated phonograph; to call it a photograph rather diminishes the comic effect. The clerk in Howard's End is Leonard Bast, not Best, and the author of His Dark Materials trilogy is Philip, not Patrick, Pullman.
Inadequate proofreading is responsible for these and other bloomers, making a running irritation in an otherwise seamless text.
The fact that "Potter" has become almost inseparable from the word "phenomenon" has provoked, or is provoking, something of a backlash (it will be interesting to see how H.P. and The Order of the Phoenix is treated).
However, 'The Perils of Harry Potter' - the new title of an essay which appeared some years ago in the New York Review of Books - refers to menaces within the books, not those supposedly fostered by the books, such as Satanism or disrespect for Muggles (almost all grown-ups). Lurie is rightly dismissive of the Satanic school of (Potter) criticism. Her own approach, indeed - to the extent that it upholds creative devilment of all kinds - puts her firmly on the side of the fallen angels.
Patricia Craig's biography of Brian Moore was published by Bloomsbury last year
Boys and Girls Forever: Reflections on Children's Classics By Alison Lurie Chatto & Windus, 219pp, £12 99