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Johanna Spyri, Heidi, 1880
Apr. 29th, 2011 06:57 pmI hadn’t read *Heidi* for ages and really I only had images in my head which are based not on the novel but on a pop up story I had in which Heidi and Peter and some goats frolicked on incredibly green mountains under an incredibly blue sky.
Actually, that pretty much sums up the book. It really is a peaen to the Swiss alps and to the virtues of the natural life. Wiki tells me that the Nazis approved of Heidi. I’m not surprised. Nor am I surprised that Heidi’s dark, curly hair had become long flaxen locks by the time the time of the unauthorised sequels (1938). The virtues of self reliance and purity celebrated in the books feed into Aryan ideas of the master race fairly neatly.
I had forgotten how much God features in the novel. And in such a heavy handed way. I read this immediately after *Seven Little Australians*, another nineteenth-century children’s novel, and the contrast in the handling of religion is marked. In *Seven Little Australians* they pray directly to God when they feel guilty or upset. In *Heidi* there is no direct connection to God but a lot of talking about reading hymns and sometimes the Bible and being grateful. Seriously, I just want to whack the Blind Grandmother around the head and tell her to stop passive-aggressively whining.
'God be thanked that he is good to the child, God be thanked! Will he let her come to me again, I wonder! the child has done me so much good. What a loving little heart it is, and how merrily she tells her tale!' And she continued to dwell with delight on the thought of the child until she went to bed, still saying now and again, 'If only she will come again! Now I have really something left in the world to take pleasure in.'
In short, it’s got proto-Nazism and whining about God and is a great deal less interesting than I remembered. Virtually the only part I enjoyed was (perversely) Peter being taught to read in the most horrific of ways, with each letter having a specific threat.
‘If you falter at W, worst of all,
Look at the stick against the wall.’
It’s so horribly Victorian that it is actually kind of funny (though not when contrasted with the way Heidi is encouraged to learn to read by being offered a nice book).
Actually, that pretty much sums up the book. It really is a peaen to the Swiss alps and to the virtues of the natural life. Wiki tells me that the Nazis approved of Heidi. I’m not surprised. Nor am I surprised that Heidi’s dark, curly hair had become long flaxen locks by the time the time of the unauthorised sequels (1938). The virtues of self reliance and purity celebrated in the books feed into Aryan ideas of the master race fairly neatly.
I had forgotten how much God features in the novel. And in such a heavy handed way. I read this immediately after *Seven Little Australians*, another nineteenth-century children’s novel, and the contrast in the handling of religion is marked. In *Seven Little Australians* they pray directly to God when they feel guilty or upset. In *Heidi* there is no direct connection to God but a lot of talking about reading hymns and sometimes the Bible and being grateful. Seriously, I just want to whack the Blind Grandmother around the head and tell her to stop passive-aggressively whining.
'God be thanked that he is good to the child, God be thanked! Will he let her come to me again, I wonder! the child has done me so much good. What a loving little heart it is, and how merrily she tells her tale!' And she continued to dwell with delight on the thought of the child until she went to bed, still saying now and again, 'If only she will come again! Now I have really something left in the world to take pleasure in.'
In short, it’s got proto-Nazism and whining about God and is a great deal less interesting than I remembered. Virtually the only part I enjoyed was (perversely) Peter being taught to read in the most horrific of ways, with each letter having a specific threat.
‘If you falter at W, worst of all,
Look at the stick against the wall.’
It’s so horribly Victorian that it is actually kind of funny (though not when contrasted with the way Heidi is encouraged to learn to read by being offered a nice book).
