Well, that was odd.
Title: The Trumpet of the Swan
Author: E.B. White (1899-1985)
Illustrator: Edward Frascino (????-)
Original Publication Date: 1970
Edition: Harper and Row (1973), 210 pages.
Genre: Anthropomorphic fantasy.
Ages: 5-8
First Sentence: Walking back to camp through the swamp, Sam wondered whether to tell his father what he had seen.
The scene opens on a pond in the vast Canadian wilderness. Two swans have settled there to build a nest and raise their young. Sam Beaver, a boy from Montana, quietly observes them before returning to his father’s camp. The cygnets hatch and a peaceful, thoughtful nature documentary on the life cycle of a trumpeter swan seems about to unfold – except that one of the new cygnets is mute. So Louis, as the unfortunate is called (and that should be given the French pronunciation like Armstrong, or a later joke will fall flat), goes looking for Sam Beaver in Montana, finds him surprisingly quickly, and requests his assistance. Sam takes him to school, where he learns to write, but since swans can’t read, a full-grown Louis must learn to play trumpet to win the beautiful swan of his dreams. His father, the old cob, has to steal a trumpet to secure his son’s future (swans having no purchasing power), and Louis must then go forth across America and seek employment as everything from camp bugler to nightclub musician, all in quest of enough money to pay damages to the music shop in Billings and restore his father’s honour.
E.B. White took a break of nearly two decades between Charlotte’s Web and this, his longest novel, in which he lets loose all restraint and delivers a tale so wholly absurd that it makes Stuart Little look positively staid in comparison – in fact, had there been a cameo from Stuart, all the way to Montana and still looking for his bird, it would have fit the general tone rather perfectly. Many people say this is White’s funniest book and I suppose it is, although I found the constant unremarked absurdity and crazyquilt plotting to be a trifle wearying after a while.
The Trumpet of the Swan is best described as a peculiar mix of ingredients. First there is the riotous comedy of a swan playing trumpet, overnighting at the Ritz and attacking zookeepers. This is tempered by an obsession with “realistic” detail, such as swans being unable to read because they don’t go to school (of course that would be the case) and Louis needing an operation on his webbed foot to be able to use the valves on his new trumpet. Then there is the nature program aspect, detailing nesting habits, natural predators and man-made hazards in the life of the trumpeter swan. Meanwhile, the serious subtext of the novel is that of disability overcome and the final effect is (somehow) of a sweeping fairy tale romance – this in spite of the fact that Louis’s true love, Serena, is barely a character at all. Your individual enjoyment of the book will depend a lot on how successfully you think these elements are handled and how willing you are to see them meshed together in the first place.
What I actually found most refreshing about this novel had to do with the change in illustrator: Edward Frascino won the commission to illustrate because he could allegedly work faster than Garth Williams, and White insisted upon a spring publication date for financial reasons. Williams’ illustrations would undoubtedly have been warm and endearing as always, but I actually found Frascino’s style a far better match to the novel: As White muses on the subjects of freedom, romance and nature conservation, Frascino supplies regal swans and landscapes that are sweeping and full of wonder. There’s a grace implicit to even the silliest images that shows the New Yorker cartoonist had hidden depths. Unlike with Williams, Frascino has never been enshrined as integral to White’s work, and the special 2000 edition of The Trumpet of the Swan replaced his illustrations with those of Fred Marcellino. I have not had a chance to compare them yet other than to note that Marcellino’s swans are far more anthropomorphized than Frascino’s.
As for the actual text, the biggest disappointment to be found this time around is actually in White’s writing style, which has become a good deal plainer than it was before – perhaps because he was hurrying himself as well as his illustrator. The sentences are shorter on average and less suited to reading aloud, as in this scene where Louis rescues a drowning boy at summer camp: Cheers came from the people on the shore and in the boats. Applegate clung to Louis’s neck. He had been saved in the nick of time. Another minute and he would have gone to the bottom. Water would have filled his lungs. He would have been a goner.
While this loss of underlying melody is certainly sad, such stiff passages are broken up by measured lines of classic White, with delicate sensibility and a love for the North American landscape (including a shout out to Yemassee, SC, which led me to this cool page). They flew south across Maryland and Virginia. They flew south across the Carolinas. They spent a night in Yemassee and saw huge oak trees with moss hanging from their branches. They visited the great swamps of Georgia and saw the alligator and listened to the mockingbird. They flew across Florida and spent a few days in a bayou where doves moaned in the cedars and little lizards crawled in the sun. They turned west into Louisiana. Then they turned north toward their home in Upper Red Rock Lake.
Louis has wings, allowing him to be a far greater traveller than tiny Stuart in his automobile or sedentary Wilbur, and thus White has him traverse the country, from Canada to Montana to Boston and Philadelphia. This freedom is tremendously important to Louis – it’s truly the classic American saga of the young man going out into the world to make a name for himself, bring prestige to the family, earn a living and win his true love… the archetypal young man is just a swan in this case. With no overhead. So it lacks real drama, making it quite perfect for little kids. Worth noting that Louis is on his own a lot of the time, meaning that one of White’s greatest skills – that of the ensemble cast which made Charlotte’s Web and the first half of Stuart Little so engaging – is almost completely absent last time around.
The most memorable character here is not even Louis; it’s his father, the old cob, who is prone to long speeches on his own gracefulness and his duty to uphold the swan image of elegance at all times. Yet he is willing to sacrifice that honour so that his mute son will have a future. He is at once both comic and noble, a figure of fun for being overly dignified, rather than a bumbling dad. In these moments The Trumpet of the Swan becomes a true companion for Charlotte’s Web – a story of a father’s love that is quite moving for a parent and comforting to a small child:
“I have robbed a store”, he said to himself. “I have become a thief. What a miserable fate for a bird of my excellent character and high ideals! Why did I do this? What led me to commit this awful crime? My past life has been blameless–a model of good behavior and correct conduct. I am by nature law-abiding. Why, oh, why did I do this?”
Then the answer came to him, as he flew steadily on through the evening sky. “I did it to help my son. I did it for love of my son Louis.”
In spite of my own preference for a less whimsical White, The Trumpet of the Swan is extremely easy to quote from and ends on a truly graceful note. While I never quite warmed to it, it does share the unique charms of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web and has its own moments of beauty alongside its wilder eccentricities.
See Also: The other two E.B. White books, Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web.
Parental Guide up next, with spoilers.
Violence: Male swans have powerful wings and are accustomed to beating up those who cross them, with Louis attacking two zookeepers attempting to corner Serena, and cuffing a little duck who stole his trumpet. The old cob is shot trying to repay the music store he’d previously burgled, but any sense of danger is soon negated as the old cob continues his elegant monologue regardless of the pain, saying “I must die gracefully, as only a swan can” before fainting. He’s soon patched up and on his way again.
Values: In addition to a love for the American landscape and an encouragement for nature preservation, White also writes an ode to freedom, with Louis and Serena choosing to take their chances in the wild rather than remain in the zoo forever. However, in a twist that weirds a lot of people out, they barter for their freedom by promising the zoo an occasional cygnet of theirs in exchange. Louis keeps this promise, as Sam Beaver points out that there’s always a runt in any brood that could benefit from mankind’s protection.
Louis is a swan navigating human society and White does bring up the problem of prejudice, primarily to spoof it. While Louis works as camp bugler, he meets a boy called Applegate who insists he doesn’t like birds. The camp leader says he is “entitled to his likes and dislikes and to his prejudices” but must still treat Louis with the respect accorded a camp bugler. After Louis saves the boy from a watery grave, the camp leader then puts Applegate on the spot, coaxing him toward a “and what have we learned today?” life lesson. Applegate thought hard for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I’m grateful to Louis for saving my life. But I still don’t like birds.” The camp leader is nonplussed and has to leave it at that.
Role Models: Everyone in this book is quite nice and fairly high-minded. Louis works hard, pays his father’s debt and always tips the waiter. His original sense of self-pity is overcome alongside his disability. The old cob does as he promised, and risks life and limb first to steal and then to pay back for the crime. Sam Beaver is kind to animals and is willing to cross the country to help his friend out of a jam. Only Serena lacks positive attributes, seeming to fall for Louis just because he carries so many material goods around and serenades her on the water.
Educational Properties: Easy tie-in to a music appreciation lesson if you have similar taste as White, who supplies a mixture of American standards (‘Summertime,’ ‘There’s a Small Hotel’ and ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ among those featured) and classical pieces (Brahms’ ‘Cradle Song’ mentioned by name, also Bach, Beethoven and Mozart) for Louis’s set list. A playlist drawn from and inspired by the book could very easily be created. The Trumpet of the Swan was also adapted for symphony in 2011 by Marsha Norman and received very positive reviews – if I ever expand into adaptations, that is certainly one I would like to try.
End of Guide.
With The Trumpet of the Swan I conclude the youth bibliography of Elwyn Brooks White. There is nowhere to go from here and that’s a very satisfying feeling all by itself, the more so given how effortless and enjoyable I found these three short, strange children’s classics to be. My advice for parents would be to gather up all three, start with Charlotte’s Web and see what order your own family would rank them in. I consider The Trumpet of the Swan as the weakest of the three but I also understand why so many other readers are completely charmed by it.
Up Next: Please note that I am changing the posting schedule from Saturday to Monday, owing to recent changes in my life. So next Monday expect a fantasy novel from two-time Carnegie winner Geraldine McCaughrean – finally a British author!
Title: Charlotte’s Web
Title: Stuart Little
The Western Corner of the Castle 