In 1926 The New Yorker published a review entitled “Far from Well” by Dorothy Parker which attacked “Winnie the Pooh”. I’ve always loved Dorothy Parker who seems to me like Groucho waving a martini shaker in a cocktail dress—and yes, how that shaker got in his cocktail dress is anybody’s guess. Meanwhile, Parker hated Milne’s toddling simplicity and all its treacle:
“The more it
snows-tiddely-pom,
The more it
goes-tiddely-pom
The more it
goes-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
“And nobody
knows-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
toes-tiddely-pom
How cold my
toes-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing.”
The above lyric is culled from the fifth page of Mr. A. A. Milne’s new book, “The House at Pooh Corner,” for, although the work is in prose, there are frequent droppings into more cadenced whimsy. This one is designated as a “Hum,” that pops into the head of Winnie-the-Pooh as he is standing outside Piglet’s house in the snow, jumping up and down to keep warm. It “seemed to him a Good Hum, such as is Hummed Hopefully to Others.” In fact, so Good a Hum did it seem that he and Piglet started right out through the snow to Hum It Hopefully to Eeyore. Oh darn—there I’ve gone and given away the plot. I could bite my tongue out.
As they are trotting along against the flakes, Piglet begins to weaken a bit.
“ ‘Pooh,’ he said at last and a little timidly, because he didn’t want Pooh to think he was Giving In, ‘I was just wondering. How would it be if we went home now and practised your song, and then sang it to Eeyore tomorrow—or—or the next day, when we happen to see him.’
“ ‘That’s a very good idea, Piglet,’ said Pooh. ‘We’ll practise it now as we go along. But it’s no good going home to practise it, because it’s a special Outdoor Song which Has To Be Sung In The Snow.’
“ ‘Are you sure?’ asked Piglet anxiously.
“ ‘Well, you’ll see, Piglet, when you listen. Because this is how it begins. The more it snows, tiddely-pom—’
“ ‘Tiddely what?’ said Piglet.” (He took, as you might say, the very words out of your correspondent’s mouth.)
“ ‘Pom,’ said Pooh. ‘I put that in to make it more hummy.’ ”
And it is that word “hummy,” my darlings, that marks the first place in “The House at Pooh Corner” at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.”
This is excellent but I wondered what AI would come up with when prompted to write in the manner of Dorothy Parker lampooning Milne. Here’s what Claude generated:
Here is Parker doing Milne, which is to say, Parker wearing Milne’s cardigan and complaining about the fit. (Her real review, as “Constant Reader” in The New Yorker, famously ended with “and it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.” I’ll leave that one alone and write something new.)
In Which Pooh Is Invited to Tea, and Regrets It
One afternoon, when the sun was doing what it could and the Forest was doing rather less, Winnie-the-Pooh sat down on a log to think. It was a very good log for thinking, being hard, damp, and entirely without opinions.
“I think,” said Pooh, “that it is almost time for a little something.”
He thought about this for a long while, and then he thought about it a little longer, because that was the sort of Bear he was, and the something, whatever it was, did not seem in any hurry to arrive.
Presently Piglet came along, trembling slightly, as he always did, like a very small man who has been told the bill is on him.
“Oh, Pooh,” said Piglet. “I’ve been so worried.”
“What about?” said Pooh.
“I don’t know,” said Piglet. “But I’m sure it’s something.”
“That,” said Pooh, “is the most sensible thing anybody has said all week,” and they both felt very much better, though neither of them could have said why, and one of them was beginning to suspect it was the honey.
Then Eeyore came by, in the manner of a rain cloud that has taken up walking.
“Good morning, Eeyore,” said Pooh.
“Is it?” said Eeyore. “I hadn’t noticed. Nobody tells me anything. I expect there was a party, and I expect I wasn’t asked, and I expect that’s just as well, since I should only have come.”
“We were just going to have tea,” said Pooh helpfully.
“Ah,” said Eeyore. “How nice for you. I shall stand over here and be an Example.”
Christopher Robin arrived then, with the air of a small boy who has never been wrong and sees no reason to start. “I have had,” he announced, “a Very Clever Idea.”
“Oh, good,” said Eeyore. “I do so enjoy those.”
“We shall all go on an Expotition.”
“And where,” said Eeyore, “does one expotit to?”
“Nowhere in particular,” said Christopher Robin, “which is the best sort of place, because nobody can say you’ve got lost.”
“Quite,” said Eeyore. “Or found.”
So they set off in a line, the Bear, the Pig, the Donkey, and the Boy, marching nowhere with tremendous purpose, and the Forest watched them go, and thought, not for the first time, that if one were going to be this precious about nothing, one might at least have the decency to drink about it.
Cue the martini shaker.
**
Yes I’m part of the vast lawsuit filed against Anthropic by writers whose books were used to train LLM without permission. I have serious reservations about AI. But cyber Parker now invented by Claude has written a rather good line: “…if one were going to be this precious about nothing, one might at lease have the decency to drink about it.”
I’ll feel better about Claude when it asks for a mulligan.
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University