Episode 2: The Wind in the Borderlands

The house on the borderlands. RIP Pepper.

Welcome back to Something About Dragons. Today we’re going to discuss two more landmarks in the history of fantasy literature: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderlands, both originally published in 1908. Like our first proper blog post, we’re looking at one popular, much adapted and beloved children’s story, and one more obscure work that primarily influenced other authors. Before we get weird, let’s start with the beloved children’s story: The Wind in the Willows.

The Wind in the Willows is somewhat difficult to synopsize. The book consists basically of a series of connected short stories, mostly in chronological order following the River animals (Badger, Mole, Rat, and occasionally Otter) as they deal with Toad’s ever-escalating antics.

If you haven’t read WITW, Toad is best described as a conceited fail-son surviving on his inheritance and the limitless patience of his friends. Toad may be a much beloved children’s character, but he acts like a jackass.

He’s also central to understanding The Wind in the Willows. Though he doesn't serve as the POV focus to the extent of Rat or Mole, he’s undoubtedly the protagonist of The Wind in the Willows, in the sense that his decisions drive the events of the book’s plot.

Anyway, the loosely connected stories ofthe book range from in-depth discussions of the pleasures of boating, to jailbreaks and fights with Weasels, to a meeting with the God Pan, which everyone immediately forgets and has no other impact on the story. The throughline though is the relationship between the characters: Rat and Mole’s domestic partnership, Badger’s paternalism, and all of them attempting to help Toad in spite of himself.

And these fantastic and enduring characters are the heart of the book. They are all something like archetypes – this is quote-unquote “children’s literature”, and there’s relatively little character growth, other than maybe Mole. And before you come at me with, “but Toad makes a speech at a party, thanks his friends, and promises to calm down!” No. I'm not falling for that. Toad took up aviation as soon as Badger, Rat, and Mole left Toad Hall. I’m 100% convinced that. As soon as their backs were turned and we read “The End”, that bastard Toad stole the Kitty Hawk flyer or started crashing Zeppelins or something.

The book is mostly a series of these vignettes, focusing on the flat-ish characters: Toad’s daring, Mole’s hope for a wider life, Rat’s fairly frequent exasperation. The characters are easy to grasp, but very relatable for all that, and the book provided a direct influence on major names in the fantasy gnere like Tolkien and Lewis. C.S. Lewis, in particular, was an acknowledged fan of the book, and his letters are littered with references to TWITW and comparisons between himself and characters like Badger, with his hatred of “society”. Narnia is essentially the capital-R River animals with the serial numbers filed off (Mr. & Mrs. Beaver, Pan makes an appropriately Catholicly-minimized appearance as Tumnus, etc.).

Other followers are fairly obvious to spot. We’ve had intelligent, anthropomorphic animals before – Alice in Wonderland, even Aesop’s fables – but here the animals are treated as the focus and the protagonists, rather than minor or side characters. The animals’ fantastic world isn’t mediated by a human audience stand-in, as in Alice in Wonderland. You, as the reader, are directly connecting with the animal characters, though it’s also unclear where the line between animal and human even is - there are multiple references to Toad’s HAIR, of all things - but Redwall, The Rats of NIMH, even something like Charlotte’s Web, owe a debt to The Wind in the Willows. Even a contemporary alternative history writer like SM Stirling frequently references stories from The Wind in the Willows - and Stirling's tales are about 180 degrees from the idyllic life of the River Animals. It’s an enduring tale largely because the relationships between the main characters are so relatable and, well, human.

More related to The Wind in the Willows' impact on the genre, let’s talk about adaptations again. When we discussed Oz, we focused on how it offered something of a prototype for expanding a secondary world through adaptation and numerous sequels. The Wind in the Willows is another, almost endlessly adapted book. However, while Oz mostly got the stage and live action treatment, WITW was most frequently adapted for the stage and animation, memorably Disney’s The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in 1949. I also highly recommend the Rankin-Bass The Wind in the Willows from 1987, which I watched innumerable times as a kid – though Toad 110% is just a re-skin of Gollum from the Rankin-Bass Hobbit. With a waistcoat.

And, of course, we can’t forget the theme park ride.

I think a large part of The Wind in the Willows’ enduring legacy is the vibrancy of these adaptations, particularly the animated movies. Toad’s antics are a visual goldmine, and everyone loves bipedal animals. They are simple stories, endlessly adaptable.

However, there’s more to the legacy of WITW than animated adaptations and the endless exploitation of cute animal stories. Adaptation is why they’re remembered. Let’s talk about what they are remembered for. Let’s talk about class.

The Wind in the Willows is set in late Victorian/Edwardian, pre-WWI Britain. I am American, my understanding of the intricacies of the British class system is marginal, at best. It’s kinda baffling to me. For example, no one has ever sufficiently explained to me how a mostly German family with a name like a Saxon law firm became the Windsors and beloved the world over as English monarchs while basically existing as parasites on the body politic? That aside, it’s not hard to pick out the classist threads running through The Wind in the Willows, something that persists throughout a lot of 20th century fantasy literature (for example, The Hobbit, both in the characterization of the trolls and in the political economy of the Shire). To put it very simply, the River dwellers, the heroes for lack of a better label, are coded as middle/upper class. Badger, Rat, Mole, and Otter have the leisure time and outlook of the middle/professional classes. They’re Yeoman, gentlemen, and other bourgeoise types.

Toad is obviously a member of the gentry and shows a little class snobbery more than once. For example:

“You common, low, fat barge-woman!” he shouted; “don't you dare to talk to your betters like that!” - Toad, from Chapter 10: The Further Adventures of Toad.

After that little outburst, and there’s more I didn’t quote, Toad steals the barge-woman’s horse. Then he sells said horse. Then he brags about getting a good price for selling said stolen horse. This is during his escape from jail for the unrelated crime of reckless driving and being cheeky with a cop. Mole, fwiw, is rapt when Toad relates this story of consequence-less thievery from the lower classes.

On the subject of class, the best that can be said of the four main characters is that Badger, at least, tries to make Toad live up to his noblesse oblige.

Meanwhile, while the four main characters (particularly the gregarious Toad) interact with the working class – washer women, barge captains, etc. – the lower classes exist as either obstacles or antagonists. Their enemies – the weasels, stoats, and ferrets – who, spoiler alert, take over Toad Hall while Toad is in jail – are coded as lower-class, unrefined and undeserving. Even the weasels/stoats/ferrets’ home, the Wild Wood, is described as crowded, dark, dangerous. A forest tenement, basically. As one anonymous TV Tropes reviewer put it:

“The Weasels of the Wild Wood are lower-class and therefore bad, while the Riverbankers are middle- and upper-class and therefore good. Indeed, the final passage states how Toad, Mole, Badger, and Rat enjoy summer walks in the now "tamed" Wild Wood and are greeted with respectful deference by the inhabitants — in other words, the lower-classes know their place and wouldn't dare rebel against their "betters", ever again.” – Anonymous, TV Tropes

Those aforementioned animated adaptations really lean into this theme of WITW, by the way. The Rankin-Bass movie, in particular, picks up on this and gives the weasels lower class accents and mannerisms. The weasels, stoats, and ferrets act destructive of the material of their social superiors, and their ejection from an upper-class space essentially serves as the climax of the main storyline. Followed by a lovely little denouement, where the River-dwellers celebrate the Weasels’ eviction with a banquet thrown by Toad, Badger and the rest. The invitations are even delivered to the non-protagonist River animals by an appropriately contrite and submissive weasel.

We talked about it a little last time with L. Frank Baum, but it’s easy to forget that many of these early 20th century authors were born in the mid-1800’s. Their formative years were during the height of the Victorian Era and the Second Industrial Revolution – or the Gilded Age, as we often referred to it in America – with all the technological “advancement”, social upheaval, and growing political dissent that time conjures up.

I don’t usually like to delve too deeply into an author’s biography, but Grahame specifically was born in 1859 and died in 1932. He was a banker; his father had been a lawyer. His family was solidly & socially middle/upper middle class, professionals and liberals in the classical, European sense. The late 19th century mass socialist movements, along with the cars, trains, and other technology, likely looked like the beginning of the end of the comfortable life of a country squire with a lucrative profession and some property. Toad’s obsessions with the newest technological marvels – motor cars, in particular, but he also mentions motorboats – and his overall character are driven by a pursuit of novelty. However, to become a good member of the gentry, Toad needs to reject his obsession with modernity and novelty. This is the lesson Badger, Rat, and Mole are attempting to impart to him in the latter half of the book. At which point he can take his “proper” place in (upper crust) society.

Throughout the book, in every little vignette, Grahame is fantasizing about an unchanging “NOW”, where the existing social order is stable and, most importantly, actively maintained by the "right kind" of people. Where independent, upstanding citizens defend their way of life from modern assaults on their ancient privileges...and property. Mostly property.

And, of course, there’s Mole. Mole, who gives up on spring cleaning to go see what the wide world has to offer. Or, at least, the wide world that’s about 100 yards away and just a couple rungs up the social ladder. While Mole is somewhat drawn to Toad’s adventures, he’s really drawn to the easy abundance of the River dwellers’ middle-class life, rather than the wasteful indulgence of the weasels (and Toad, for that matter) or the scary, overpopulated Wild Wood.

Mole is the “right” kind of upwardly mobile. Mole wants to be worthy of the River life. He wants to earn the privilege of living along the River. By, for example, trying to row the boat or find Otter’s lost son. And to move up just the appropriate amount – a move to Rat’s home, not something like Toad Hall. Mole is trying to fit in, to become one of the River animals. The weasels and stoats are antagonists because they only want the material trappings of the middle-class life.

The Wind in the Willows idealizes this bucolic, arcadian fantasy and emerges as a piece of pastoral nostalgia written in the dying years of the Victorian/Edwardian era, and that vibe – for lack of a better term – pervades a lot of the later “breakout” fantasy of the mid-20th century.

Just to use the most obvious example, you see something very similar in Narnia. Later in the project, we’ll talk about another manifestation of this idea, Medieval stasis. And there is something present here about the difference between early English fantasy versus early American fantasy. In English fantasy, you often see this small-c, conservative desire for social stability expressed as the goal of the story. Or, alternatively but similarly, the goal of the quest is to return the society to a previous (and better) golden age. Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia being two obvious examples. American fantasy, similar to American pop culture in general, tends to display a belief in changing the future for the better (see, obviously, Star Wars). It rests on a theme of utopian creation rather than arcadian return.

We’ll come back to these themes in later episodes and muddle through them some more. Particularly as we start getting into the pulp era when Burroughs and Howard, both American authors, start playing in our fantastical sandbox, and inject the fantasy genre with a little Western swagger.

Suffice it to say that, in addition to cute animals, The Wind in the Willows exemplifies fantasy literature's issues with this classist concern with social stasis. As much as I love it, fantasy doesn’t tend to be the literature of revolution. Or, at least, there’s a major strain of the genre that is primarily concerned with social stasis and stable social order. The Wind in the Willows and its followers ain’t cyberpunk is what I’m saying, and it’s worth keeping this small ‘c’ conservative aspect of the genre in mind as we move through the century. You’ll see it in Tolkien (and Lewis) as well, though tinged with more sacrifice in both those stories. Which is how you know it’s ADULT fantasy.

On to House on the Borderland. There is a very clear thematic difference between The Wind in the Willows and House on the Borderland. The Wind in the Willows is about setting your home right and removing disrupting influences. House on the Borderland is a book about infinite, even cosmic possibilities. The Wind in the Willows is about wanting restoration and stability. House on the Borderland is about unreliable narrators, nested (and incomplete) narratives, haunted houses, and fighting interdimensional swine-creatures.

A quick summary of House on the Borderland. Hodgson wrote the book as a nested narrative, which introduces some literary experimentation into the fantasy genre. I don’t think the story’s structure is all that influential on later fantasy – although the genre does love its found texts, fictional tomes, and authoritative ephemera – though it makes for an interesting read.

The framing story is two dudes on a fishing holiday near a remote Irish town find a journal. What are their names? Doesn’t matter. The journal describes a series of horrible supernatural events and cosmic hallucinations and/or astral projection by an unarmed narrator. Who is the unnamed narrator? Also doesn't matter. For the sack of simplicity, we’ve seemingly collectively agreed to call him “the Recluse”, capital ‘R’. Within the found manuscript narrative, there are four main sections:

1. A vision of alternate reality with gods the size of mountains,

2. What I’m calling The Siege of the Pig Men! 

3. The famous time speed vision, which operates as the real heart of the book,

4. Spoiler alert, the corruption & potential murder of the Recluse by a ghostly swine apparition.

Is the narrator actually murdered? Not important! The true heart of the book is the cosmic horror tropes, visions that span eons of time, and some just fantastically written scenes of horror and incomprehensibility.

I didn’t just put House on the Borderland on the fantasy history list because of its influence on later writers like Lovecraft and King (though scholars believe that Lovecraft may have encountered Hodgson in the early/mid 1930’s, well after he was an established author, so possible parallel evolution rather than direct influence). King, for example, cribs from a lot of Hodgson for the vision Roland has at the end of The Gunslinger, from the cries of “Let there be light” by the Man in Black, to the description of the Tower:

“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.” – The Gunslinger, pg 221, “The Gunslinger and the Man in Black.

We’ll see next week where I think King cribbed a bit from another book on our list, A Voyage to Arcturus, for another bit of the Dark Tower series, but I digress.

The main reason I included House on the Borderland was because it shows the possibility of fantasy as a genre. If you have ever thought that the genre had gotten kind of monotonous – and I’ll admit there are times where I have – House on the Borderland offers up a really interesting option for the potential breadth of the genre. This is a genre that can encompass the locality of The Wind in the Willows and the truly cosmic visions of House on the Borderland.

One scene in House on the Borderland describes eons passing as the narrator sits in his study. The sun and moon blur as they circle the earth. The sun dies. His dog turns to dust beside him (RIP Pepper). The Earth is shot out into the infinity between the stars. You think you’re going to get Attack the Block with interdimensional pigmen, and instead you get cosmic fever dreams. There are radical tone shifts, missing chapters, unexplained love interests. It really has to be read to be fully appreciated. It’s really entertaining and an excellent reminder that this was a time when morphine was sold over-the-counter.

In short, it’s “weird fiction” at its finest, and a reminder that, in fantasy, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Borderland shows just how out there the genre can take you.

House on the Borderland also shows the power of ambiguity and the potential of offering the reader multiple interpretations. The end is basically The Lady or the Tiger, except not terribly annoying. Is the narrator mad? Is his sister his caretaker or his victim? The fishermen from the framing narrative gather tales about the missing house from the surrounding community, but there’s no actual house in their time. No foundation. No crumbling walls. Is there still risk of cosmic swine incursion after they leave? Was the unnamed narrator’s experience real?  Pepper - the dog - dies during the cosmic fast-forward excursion, but not the Recluse's sister, who disappears from the middle half of book and never acknowledges any of the supernatural occurrences.

This ambiguity is the key with House on the Borderland. It leaves the story open to multiple interpretations. You can enjoy the surface level cosmic trip, swine-creature fighting tragedy. You can wonder if the narrator’s sister is the only sane one in the story (except for, of course, Pepper the dog). You can wonder if the end of the journal is actually the end of the story (it’s got a real Monty Python “Castle Arggggg…” ending). But then what chased the fishermen in the framing story? What happened to the house? Did the ghostly apparition that – allegedly – killed the Recluse also kill his sister? Multiple interpretations of the events of a story aren’t something fantasy usually does well, though it’s more common in horror fiction. I think the ambiguity has value for that reason. Not only does the book offer a view of the cosmic as a potential aspect of the genre, but it also shows how ambiguity can interact with fantasy literature.

Finally, and I just want to touch on this point here, because we will absolutely come back to it, let’s talk about violence. 

Not in the decapitation, oceans of blood, gratuitous grimdark wallowing kind of way. Let’s talk about who it’s ok to kill.

Now, House on the Borderland is not a book that has oceans of blood or hacked off limbs or anything like that. The main physical enemy is the swine creatures, and they’re only really there in the second section of the book, where it becomes a straight-up supernatural siege. The swine creatures aren’t shown to be anything other than violent, cannibalistic monsters. If the swine things get in the house, it’s pretty clear what they plan to do to the Recluse, at least in his mind. Therefore, his shooting of many of the swine things (and his crushing of several with a giant rock) is obviously self-defense.

Which is kind of the point. It’s totally cool to do violence on these monsters and only the most pacifistic folks would have a problem with shooting (or squashing) them. They are acceptable targets of the Recluse’s violence.

But this issue gets muddled in the fantasy genre pretty quickly. We will be diving into the pulps soon – Clark Ashton Smith, Howard and so forth – where the targets of violence get more questionable and VERY frequently racially coded. Throughout the mid-20th century, we’re going to come across a lot of monsters that are given cultural and physical aspects of actual, real-life groups of people. “Aspects” if we’re being generous; stereotypes if we’re being accurate. Sometimes this is unconscious; often it’s explicit by the author. This is the eugenics era, after all.

If you’ve been paying attention to speculative fiction in recent years, you’ll also have heard about the discussion of the racialized aspects of, for example, the “evil” races in D&D, Tolkien’s orcs, and awards nonsense like the Sad Puppies. Meaning we are basically JUST NOW beginning to reckon with these issues, after over a century of genre fiction. I want to plant this seed of discussion here, because we’ll be coming back to the topic throughout the rest of this project, and there is some truly nasty and unforgivable stuff when we get to the 70s/80s that I am not looking forward to revisiting.

Keep the issue of acceptable targets of violence in mind. In the hands of lazier writers, it can get very questionable, very quickly. Later on, in the late 70s and early 80s though, we will also cover another strain of post-modern fantasy that flips the script and focuses on the motivations and quote-unquote humanity of the monsters. Most prominently with Grendel (1971) or Interview with the Vampire (1976). Much of modern urban fantasy from writers like Laurel K. Hamilton are indebted to this post-modern fantasy tradition as well.

But, for now, before we endlessly reexamine the emo-motivations of vampires and other classic monsters, we are going to be dealing with a lot of faceless spear-carriers and wading through just oceans of unexamined racism. To wit, next time we will be discussing Burroughs. Brace yourselves.

That seems like a good place to stop. Here, we’ve looked at another children's classic that has been the subject of many animated adaptations, directly influenced luminaries like Tolkien and Lewis, and set a template for how the issue of class is addressed in large swathes of the fantasy genre. We also looked at HOTB, a staple of early “weird fiction” that also directly influenced luminaries in the field, like King and Lovecraft. But it also shows the cosmic possibilities of the fantasy genre and can serve as a foundation for how to think about violence - and its targets - in fantasy literature.

Thank you everyone. Come back soon for our next post, Tarzan the Incel or Beaten to a Pulp.