Books |
Charlotte’s Web
E.B. White
By
Published: Jul 10, 2022
Category:
Children
You all read “Charlotte’s Web” when you were 8.
I didn’t.
And because no one read it to me, my childhood ended without any knowledge of what seems to be the most popular children’s book ever written.
Why did I finally read it? Because. I saw an article in the Times about a recent audio edition of the book … narrated by Meryl Streep. That is an event. [To buy the audiobook from Amazon, click here. To buy the book, click here. For the Kindle, click here. And if you’re a White enthusiast and want a child to be, also buy Stuart Little from Amazon. And, just to round this out, you might like the audio book of “Stuart Little,” narrated by Julie Harris.
Decades of writing and reading have taught me that there is no fiction or biography – there is only memoir. Because I believe that as a Deep Truth, I see the magnificent spider in this book is a stand-in for the author. White half-admits that. “This boy,” wrote White about himself as a child, “felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people.” He went on: “Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.”
“Charlotte’s Web” is thus White’s musing on love and friendship and death. And he serves up those big questions directly, which isn’t what you expect from a novel for kids published in 1952. Its excellence finally got the book into trouble: it was banned in Kansas in 2006 because “talking animals are blasphemous and unnatural” and the details of Charlotte’s final days were “inappropriate subject matter for a children’s book.”
Yes, when Wilbur, the pig, meets Charlotte, the spider, he discovers the reality of death —and the likelihood that his will come in the fall. But Charlotte spins words into her web that turn Wilbur into a celebrity, worth much more alive than dead.
Naturally, the adults are clueless. Actually, only some of them. That is, the men:
“But we have received a sign, Edith — a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm… in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig’… we have no ordinary pig.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”
Mr. Zuckerman can’t come to terms with the miracle in his barnyard.
“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.”
“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle — it’s just a web.”
“Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian.
Attention has consequences:
Ever since the spider had befriended him, he had done his best to live up to his reputation. When Charlotte’s web said SOME PIG, Wilbur had tried hard to look like some pig. When Charlotte’s web said TERRIFIC, Wilbur had tried to look terrific. And now that the web said RADIANT, he did everything possible to make himself glow.
Charlotte explains the future — the future for us all:
“These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…”
Wilbur is overwhelmed:
“Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”
The ending is classic White: straightforward, unadorned, and hopeful — directly hopeful, about his own reach for a life that extends beyond his death:
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
I would not have understood this at 8. Did you?
