Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter Rollin Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars “Hath not a Rat eyes? If you prick us do we not bleed?” OR “People who are scared are hardly ever very clear about what scared them.” In Freddy and the Ignormus (1941), the eighth of Walter R. Brooks’ 26(!) Freddy the Pig books, Freddy is writing an alphabet book in verse about animals to teach them to read, when Theodore, a handsome frog (who, though prone to stuttering, may be a better poet than the pig), shames Freddy into exploring the perilous Big Woods (“I may be only a pig, but I’ve got some pride”). This leads Freddy to investigate the Ignormus (a newly created rural-legend monster, after whose name Freddy likes to hopefully append, “if he exists”), which leads him to investigate a series of robberies on the Bean farm (even the small wild animals’ winter stores are robbed from the First Animal Bank of which Freddy is President). Freddy is stumped, his reputation as an ace detective and an honest pig in tatters. Even Mr. Bean believes that Freddy has stolen a bag of oats. The scoundrel rat Simon and his clan, recently returned from exile from the First Animal Republic (“For I think you will agree with me that there is no place in a republic of free animals, for rats”), must be behind everything, but how? And how to prove it, as the rats have been keeping out of sight? The novel features a swing for animals, a borrowed and then stolen and then sabotaged shotgun, a strange animal from Africa, the Ignormus (if he exists), a thrilling battle in the Big Woods, plenty of scares, and a surprising and heart-warming resolution. And many of Brooks’ straight-faced funny “facts” about animals: “For hens, as you perhaps know, can crow just as well as roosters if they want to. Usually they don’t want to.” “Mrs. Wiggins wasn’t brilliant—few cows are—but she had common sense, which Freddy had found by experience was a good deal more helpful.” “Spiders have very small voices, and they have to be almost in your ear before you can hear them, which is probably why so few people have ever heard a spider say anything.” “That’s a centipede for you. Generous as all get out, but pretty hard-boiled.” Freddy, of course, plays the central role, a reluctant detective who must discover the identity of the farm robbers in order to clear his own sullied name, while finding time to compose egregious poetry and dress up in disguise (as a small but wealthy hunter with a small hunting dog who looks and sounds suspiciously like a frog!). Jinx, the black cat is great (though his visiting sister Minx is a one-note joke who stays too long, always having had an experience better than yours), Charles the pompous rooster has a couple moments of genuine bravery (call him a chicken at your peril), Mrs. Wiggins the president of the FAR and their army’s general to boot exercises her down to earth wisdom and leadership, Theodore is insightful (and good at manipulating Freddy by appealing to his reputation for adventure), and the spiders Mr. and Mrs. Webb and a beetle called Randolph play key roles. Like the other Freddy novels, this one coheres around a set of themes: how our imaginations can scare us, how ignorance can be an enormous monster, how our reputations can make us reckless, how true bravery involves acting when you’re terrified, how kindness and forgiveness can heal much but not everything. The story is entertaining and funny, and although not up to the high standards of the better books like Freddy the Politician, Freddy the Detective, and Freddy and the Popinjoy, it has some neat moments, like when Simon goads Freddy, “I’ve been visiting my relatives out in Iowa. That’s a great place, Freddy. Lots of pigs in Iowa. But they don’t make poetry. No, no. Out in Iowa the pigs make pork. Pork, not poetry, Freddy. You ought to take a little trip out there.” Or like when Freddy muses, “‘It’s funny,” he thought. ‘Whether I believe in the Ignormus or not depends entirely on where I am. Out here I’m perfectly sure there isn’t any such creature. Am I sure?’ He thought a minute. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘But the minute I step in under those trees I’ll believe in him again.’” By the way, I bet E. B. White read this book, because in Charlotte’s Web Templeton says things to Wilbur reminiscent of Simon’s words to Freddy here and declaims on how unappreciated he is (as a rat) in ways not unlike those of Brooks’ earlier rat elsewhere in this novel. View all my reviews
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