Well there we go. Maia and I have just completed a major part of the emotional damage we call Growing Up. We have just finished Charlotte's Web.
OHMYGOD!!! Why didn't anyone tell me?? I remember the fluffy/cartoon/Disney, yes-it-is-sad-but-happy-in-the-end version. Not this mawkish, nay terrifying tome. I have been editing a little bit in the telling, avoiding the great swathes of overblown prose and moderating the nastiness of the rat, Templeton.
Halfway through the last chapter this evening, I was tempted to change the ending and make it a Happily Ever After story but couldn't think quick enough. I tried to deflect her with the offer of a different story, but she was not to be deterred. I then thought that she might just be listening to my voice, rather than really absorbing the story. Nope. When Charlotte died, Maia cried.
Then she broke my heart - she said that she didn't want to be like Charlotte. Wow. So Charlotte's Web made me cry as a kid, and now again as an adult because my daughter has suddenly linked death with something that could possibly happen to her and the people she loves.
Now I feel like crap. I spoke to her about memories and how we live on in the love we have for everyone, and the love that they have for us. I promised her that no one she loved was going to die for a very very, long time. Then I sat with her until she fell asleep. And spent the whole time cursing E.B. White.
Maybe we will stick to Roald Dahl from now on. No big themes in his work, right?? Ugh. Time to buy a book about pink fairies.
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