In London, in children’s books, life is too orderly and one longs for
the vitality of the wild; in Paris, order is an achievement, hard won
against the natural chaos and cruelty of adult life; in New York, we
begin most stories in an indifferent city and the child has to create a
kind of order within it. Each of these schemes reflects a history: the
English vision being a natural consequence of a peaceful nation with a
reformist history and in search of adventure; the French of a troubled
nation with a violent history in search of peace; and the American of an
individualistic and sporadically violent country with a strong ethos of
family isolation and improvised rules. We go to the imaginary Paris for
sudden glimpses of evil (the death of Babar’s mother) set off by
satisfying visions of aesthetic bliss (the Celesteville Bureau of
Industry, situated near the Amusement Hall), just as we go to the
imaginary London to satisfy our longing for adventure and the undefined
elsewhere, which returns us safely in the end to Cherry Tree Lane. And
we go to the imaginary New York for the pleasure of the self-made: to
see two children actually hide and live in a museum; to see an
alligator, or a mouse, absorbed uncontroversially into a normal life.
Adam Gopnik
