Just finished Wind in the Willows. Go read it please.

I just finished reading Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and its probably one of my top five books of all time. 

    For a long while I thought I just wasn't into books anymore, because I don't like reading YA or "adult people books". I guess I kind of forgot that I could just read literally anything else LMAO. So after going through a multi year reading drought (I'm not counting manga, or comics, because they really are mostly pictures. Not sorry.) I just said fuck it, and started reading children's books again. Specifically older books with length and some complexity. Honestly it has me reading almost as much as I used to when I was a kid.

    I like fantasy, but all the YA fantasy I came across was so boiled chicken dry I couldn't do it. There is a severe lack of whimsy + I don't like books about sexy werewolves/elves/vampires/demigod fighting over a self insert white girl. Also there's a weird "Don't say Zombie" problem where the fantasy mfers are all vampyrs (2 syllables) and fæfollk. I can't stand that shit. Like please stop trying to force uniqueness in your marketable romantasy, we all know you demons are skimming the book for the sex parts anyway. 

    Lmao back on topic. I like nice things with animal characters so I guess it was natural that I'd find Wind in the Willows eventually. I don't remember if I found the animated version on YouTube first while watching Little Bear, or on Pinterest. I've seen the book cover with Pan above the title thought it looked cool, then eventually I made a Pinterest board full of Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh, Calico Critters, and stuff like that, so illustrations from the book started coming up. And I have to say, the illustrations are GREAT. Like there have been plenty of different illustrators (old book) and honestly, they're all really well done. So once I hit this year's "I need to read more books" kick, I knew what I was reading first. 

WARNING! There will be some spoilers past the jump so be alert.

    Wind in the Willows was published in 1908, it has 12 chapters, and almost 60,000 words in total. So its not long like a novel, but the age gives it a length similar to YA fiction, without the teen pandering chicanery.

    There are four main characters who are friends, Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger. Mole and Rat are the first 2 introduced, and then they go on a boat trip together to go visit Toad at his estate. Toad has that generational wealth, but he's kind of insane so he doesn't do anything decent with it, he just lets his intrusive thoughts win. And yes, I do mean intrusive, not just impulsive. Both are at play here. Toad is a menace to society. He's the CEO of doing fuck all with his daddy's money, and making it everybody else's problem. He's the hobby hopper final boss. He nearly gets hit by a car while in his caravan. Then he forms an unearthly obsession with cars because of it. This is a critical plot point. 

Next chapter Mole get lost in the woods trying to find Badger, so Rat has to go get him, but by the time Rat finds Mole, it's already snowing. Through trial and tribulation, they find Badger's home (burrow?) and Badger welcomes them in. He's wearing those Ebenezer Scrooge pajamas, with a candle and everything. Through conversation it is revealed that in the months between chapter 1, and chapter 4, Toad had TOTALED 7 cars, and had been in hospital multiple times. He can't drive for shit, even described as "hopelessly incapable". Probably because he is a toad, and not a human.

    If you read this book expecting Beatrix Potter, you will experience whiplash. The contrast between Rat and Mole's adventures, to the Toad saga, is peak comedy. It's like Minecraft and GTA. Speaking of GTA, Toad commits it. 

    After winter (Animal etiquette dictates, that no real work is done during winter.) they pretty much hold an intervention to try and get Toad to put the car keys down, and they lock him in his room. Then the "Terror of the Highway" escapes, grabs lunch, and steals a car.

{start of big text quote}
"Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold of the handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the old passion seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul. As if in a dream he found himself, somehow, seated in the driver's seat; as if in a dream, he pulled the lever and swung the car round the yard and out through the archway; and, as if in a dream, all sense of right and wrong, all fear of obvious consequences, seemed temporarily suspended. He increased his pace, and as the car devoured the street and leapt forth on the high road through the open country, he was only conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail, before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting night. He chanted as he flew, and the car responded with sonorous drone; the miles were eaten up under him as he sped he knew not whither, fulfilling his instincts, living his hour, reckless of what might come to him."
{end of big text quote}

AND HE GOES TO JAIL! ITS ONLY CHAPTER 6/12!

Other incredible story beats: THEY MET GOD. Or at least the god of their forest, but to a mole that's just god. Wind in the Willows is genuinely exciting to read. You want to know what the hell is going on. This is a banger.