Review: Mary Poppins, by P.L. Travers

Russ Allbery eagle at eyrie.org
Sun Nov 10 20:06:27 PST 2019


Mary Poppins
by P.L. Travers

Series:      Mary Poppins #1
Illustrator: Mary Shepard
Publisher:   Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Copyright:   1934
Printing:    2014
ISBN:        0-544-57475-3
Format:      Kindle
Pages:       202

I read this book as part of Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection,
which includes the first four books of the series.

I have a long-standing irritation with movies that become so famous
that they swallow the book on which they were based, largely because of
three examples from my childhood: Bambi (the book is so much better),
The Wizard of Oz (the book is... not really better, but the rest of the
series certainly is), and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (the book is
so much more). That irritation is sometimes misplaced, however. Even
Disney has been known to make a mediocre book into a better movie on
occasion (The Hundred and One Dalmations). When Mary Poppins came up
recently (a movie I adored as a kid), I vaguely remembered having read
the book long ago, couldn't remember anything about it, and wondered
what side of the fence it would come down on. Since an anniversary
collection of the first four books was free with Amazon Prime, it was
easy to find out.

Answer: perhaps the series improves in later books, but the movie is
totally different in tone from the first book, and much better.

I am surprised that I'd forgotten as much about this book as I had,
even though it's been at least thirty years since I've read it, since
it is extremely odd. I suspect the highly episodic structure is to
blame. Mary Poppins never develops into a proper story; instead, it's a
series of vignettes about the titular character, the Banks family, and
other people on Cherry-Tree Lane. Some of these stories will be
familiar from the movie (Uncle Albert floating up into the air because
of his laughter). Some will definitely not be, such as a (very brief)
trip around the world via a magical compass, a visit from a star who is
Christmas shopping, or a truly bizarre birthday celebration for Mary
Poppins in the zoo. Unlike the movie, there is no unifying theme of
Mary Poppins fixing the Banks's family problems; quite to the contrary,
she seems entirely uninterested and even oblivious to them.

This is not Julie Andrews's kind, gentle, and magically competent
nurse. There aren't two separate advertisements for her job; this Mary
Poppins appears after Mrs. Banks sent letters to the papers advertising
for a position and blithely dismisses her request for references. She
is neither kind nor gentle, although by the end of the book one gets
the feeling she's brought a sort of gruff stability to the household.
Like the movie character, she does take the children on adventures, but
they seem almost accidental, a side effect of being around Mary Poppins
and thus inadvertantly involved in her business (which she rarely, if
ever, explains). It's a more intimidating and fae strangeness, only
slightly explained by a chapter that reveals that all children know how
to talk to the sun and the wind and the animals but forget when they
turn one, except for Mary Poppins. (Ode: Intimations of Immortality has
a lot of depressing philosophy to answer for.)

Perhaps the oddest difference from the movie for me is that Travers's
Mary Poppins is endlessly vain. She's constantly admiring herself in
shop windows or finding just the right clothes, much to the frequent
boredom of the children. It's an amusing take on a child's view of
adult shopping trips, but the vanity and preening feels weirdly out of
place for such a magical character.

There is no change in the Banks household in this book; perhaps there
is more material in the later books. (The whole series appears to be
eight volumes.) When the wind changes, Mary Poppins disappears as
mysteriously as she appears, not even saying goodbye, although she does
leave some gifts. By that point, Jane and Michael do seem fond of her,
although I'm not entirely sure why. Yes, there are adventures, but
outside of them, and even during them, Mary Poppins is short, abrupt,
demanding, and fond of sharp and dismissive aphorisms. Gregory Maguire
proclaims his preference for the books in the foreword on the grounds
that they show more glimmers of mystery and danger, and I can see that
if I squint. But I mostly found her unpleasant, dictatorial,
irritating, and utterly unwilling to explain anything to curious
children.

On this point, I'll dare to disagree with Maguire and prefer the Disney
version.

A few of the stories here were fun and entertaining in ways not
provided by the movie, particularly "Miss Lark's Andrew" (the
successful escape of a neighbor dog from enforced isolation and
unnatural pampering) and "Christmas Shopping" (I do hope the Pleiades
liked their presents!). But when I get the urge for Mary Poppins, I
think I'll turn to the movie with no regrets. This is an interesting
curiosity, and perhaps subsequent books add more depth (and make Mary
less obnoxious), but I don't think it's worth seeking out.

Followed by Mary Poppins Comes Back.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Reviewed: 2019-11-10

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)             <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


More information about the book-reviews mailing list