The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars An odd last children’s novel, less appealing than his first two I found E. B. White’s third and final children’s book, The Trumpet of the Swan (1970) less charming, funny, moving, and fantastic, than Stuart Little (1945) and Charlotte’s Web (1952). It tells the story of Louis, a trumpeter swan who’s born mute and who therefore must find a way to “speak” in order to attract the swan he loves (because male trumpeter swans use their bugling calls to woo and win mates). A nature- and animal-loving boy called Sam Beaver inspires Louis to learn to read and write with a slate and a chalk pencil, while Louis’ father heroically steals a trumpet from a Boulder, Colorado music store and gives it to his son to give him a voice. The rest of the novel depicts Louis’ attempts to earn money playing the trumpet to pay back the music store owner, to woo his beloved Serena, and to find a way to live free with his family. As in Charlotte’s Web, White begins this novel with what seems to be a human child protagonist and then shifts to a young animal hero for the bulk of the story. As in Charlotte’s Web, White loves nature, especially eggs. As he researched spiders to write Charlotte’s Web, White researched trumpet swans to write this novel, working in plenty of information about them: size, color, nests, eggs, flight, migration, names for males and young, etc. It is an odd children’s novel in its emphasis on money--needing it, getting it, spending it, finally living without it, etc.--including the prices of various things like hotel watercress sandwiches or a postage stamp or an airplane ticket or an agent’s fee or a bugler’s salary for a boys’ wilderness summer camp, etc. It is also much concerned about adult love (even more than Stuart Little), romantic and practical, with plenty of reproduction occurring. White writes verbose, poetic, dramatic, hyperbolic speeches for Louis’ father, and I’m unsure he’s funny enough to warrant the time/space given him, or that kids would appreciate his verbiage (though they might enjoy it when his down to earth spouse reigns him in). The novel favors the child who’s different from others, especially the child who has a “defect” of some sort and tries to encourage such a child to develop alternate ways of thriving, but it never really favors the idea of a child being a complete loner. Also, although the book touts the attractions of freedom, (view spoiler)[a bargain Louis makes with a zookeeper sacrifices the freedom of some of his cygnets. It seems a weird bargain made by White for Louis with Sam as intermediary, promising in return for the zookeeper not clipping Serena’s wings to bring the zoo any future physically challenged cygnets she bears to Louis, unconcernedly sacrificing their future freedom in return for Serena’s and his own. One wonders why White felt compelled to write this plot strand into his novel, given his vivid depiction of Louis’ speech defect, overcoming of it, and pursuit of freedom (and love). (hide spoiler)] The greater amount of popular culture references and slang (e.g., hippies, rock, jazz, country, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, etc.) date the novel more than his earlier books for kids. It has (for White) some surprisingly lame writing. At one point a boy says, “That swan is as good as Louis Armstrong, the famous trumpet player,” when no boy would say that appositive phrase. White is ham handedly and unnecessarily explaining to the reader who Louis Armstrong was. For that matter, calling the swan Louis is too obvious a Louis Armstrong reference. Furthermore, while Fern names Wilbur, and Stuart’s parents presumably name him, for the cob to name his son Louis is an odd rupture of White’s fantasy. The talking animal business is handled by White as follows. His animals (well, the swans) speak English with each other as eloquently as any human beings and can understand human English, and Louis learns to communicate with humans by writing on his slate. But no animals (surely not the mute Louis) can speak English to people. It’s a little like Charlotte writing English words in her webs for people to read, though they take them as miracles and not attempts at communication by a spider. As for Stuart, he can talk with other animals and people alike and they with him, but he “only” looks like a mouse, and whether he’s animal or human is ambiguous. Anyway, in this third novel, White works the language thing inconsistently, having Louis’ father wield an impressively large and advanced vocabulary in his speechifying, understand what people are saying, but then assume that “superficial” means “serious” at one point. The fantasy in this book, then, doesn’t always hold up as convincingly as does the fantasy in White’s other books. That said, there is a great touch when Louis has Sam cut the webbing on one foot so he can play the trumpet! That’s a neat, painful, realistic touch to the fantasy that works well. Sam Beaver, who looks like an Indian and walks like one and has the family name Beaver but is not an Indian, is cool. Intelligent, thoughtful, curious, sensitive, observant, quiet, and kind, he’s like what we could (hope to) imagine Fern becoming if she didn’t instead become fascinated by Henry Fussy, for Sam loves animals and loves watching them and thinking about them and being with them at least as much as Fern does and more consistently as well (view spoiler)[though his final career choice to become a zookeeper seems at odds with the novel’s themes about freedom and wilderness (hide spoiler)]. All this is to say that being a book by E. B. White, it’s well written and has great moments and humor and beauty and is full of the love of life in this world on this earth and the longing to be free from adult constraints, but that it’s less fulfilling and memorable than his earlier two novels. Although I frequently teach his older books in classes, I’ve never thought to use The Trumpet of the Swan. Another reason for that may be that the illustrations are not done by the splendid Garth Williams. The audiobook I listened to was perfectly read by White himself (available in parts on YouTube) and includes real trumpet playing whenever Louis plays the trumpet. View all my reviews
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