And that's what The Pooh Perplex does ... you get a whole series of essays about the book from various different critics, all interpreting the book in different ways. There's the Marxist interpretation, there's the Freudian viewpoint .. one critic madly suggests that it's simply a nice story for children!
At about two-thirds of the way through, I realised that the whole thing was a joke ... a parody of the "casebook" idea. Lots of the projects and tasks set at the end of each essay were rather odd .... telling you not to write on both sides of the paper at once etc ... plus a lot of the author's names were a bit odd as well... Simon Lacerous etc. Each of the "authors" were in fact mimicking the style of an actual literary critic .. Simon Lacerous was F R Leavis ... whom I was to meet 5 years later rather disastrously. But that's another story. It was in Wales though.
So .. one of the most startling essays is by the esteemed critic C.J.L Culpepper, who attempts to show that far from being an innocent little kid's story about cuddly bears etc, it is in fact about "nothing other than the central drama of our faith: the Fall and Redemption of Man. "
Well, that's a pretty tall order to prove, but he does it pretty well. His principal coup is to demonstrate that Eeyore is a sort of "king" .. he points out astutely that in Italian "io re" means" I (am the) King."
But .... but ... but .. if he had only known some Welsh, he would have found a far more compelling truth about said Eeyore ... because the Welsh word Iôr = the Lord !!!! The Lord... you can keep your kings mate ... Eeyore is the Lord. Ha!!
He plumps for Christopher Robin as god.... with the rather (too) obvious anagram " I Hope Christ Born R ".... that's R for Rex he reckons .... but I'm not convinced. I think I can go down a more productive channel ... the Welsh connection....
[a] We've already had a huge breakthrough by showing that Eeyore/ Iôr is in fact God.
[b] Another bleedin' obvious one .. Roo / rhyw = sex. Roo is the only evidence that anything resembling sexual reproduction goes on in the Forest. So the author has given us a clue ... Rhyw/Roo !
[c] Christopher Robin ...obviously he is really Crys - twrf - wr Brongoch .... a multitude of reddish shirts .... makes you think of Joseph and his Coat of Many Colours ... except that a humble person like Joseph would be far more likely to have a much more downmarket "shirt" probably homemade from a few cut-up pairs of trousers of various shades of red, or stained by the desert sands.
[c] Tigger/Tega .... the most fair, the finest , the most beautiful .... apart from Roo, who as we know has another rôle in the story. Tigger is the most innocent, the most playful, in fact the finest, most unspoilt creature in the Forest.
[d] Kanga/Cancr ... Kanga is much the opposite of Tigger ... Kanga, an unmarried, bossy, rule-obsessed latecomer is an internal threat ( cancer) to the whole of the forest community. I suspect that Cancr/Cancer is the reason why there is no volume 3 ... the whole caboodle is robbed of its innocence and falls apart.
[e] We musn't forget the author himself ... having created this "paradise" I'm sure he must have dearly wished he could be a part .. any part.. of it. Hence the Milne/Milyn clue/revelation that he too wished to join Tega, Rhyw, Iôr, Cancr, Crystwrfwr Brongoch and all and live with them in their enchanted world for ever.
[f] What do we make of Piglet/Pi-Clwt ? And how does Pw fit in ? I'm still trying to squeeze these ill-fitting pieces of the jigsaw into the ,literally, "big picture" that Milyn has presented us with. There's a lot more to be found out I'm sure ... but I've made a start and paved the way to much greater discoveries. Maybe we will one day find that the whole Pooh/Pu saga was originally written in Welsh .... the manuscript will perhaps be discovered deep in the vaults of Bangor Cathedral , and I might even live long enough to open the inevitable "Ystafell Milyn" in the chancel.
Remember folks .. it all started here. And after that thrilling literary breakthrough, here's Race Horse and "Cysur a Cyffro"...