The Box of Delights: Or When the Wolves Were Running (Kay Harker)

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I wanted to like it more than I did, but at the same time, I found it quite unique and interesting and have to give Masefield credit for that. His characters are surprisingly unemotional, which I found amusing. And there was food for thought - I've always tried to have my 3 wishes ready in case a genie should jump out of a lamp - and this book made me think - what would I want to see if I could see anything I wanted? Kay was asked that remarkable question. So now I've got that to think about. I wouldn't mind seeing the path the whales take as they migrate...or, or... Kay Harker is returning from boarding school when he finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box. It allows the owner to shrink in size, to fly swiftly, to go into the past and to experience the magical wonders contained within the box. The play’s director, Justin Audibert, said: “It’s a show that features trains, boats, planes, mythical creatures, a good and a very bad magician, and characters that magically turn into tiny versions of themselves, characters that transform into animals that fly through the air and swim in the sea. How exciting is that? This classic of English children's literature, sadly overlooked by most on this side of the Atlantic, has just been reissued in a beautiful edition by the New York Review Children's Collection...Although The Box of Delights was first published in 1935, Masefield's intoxicating prose has lost none of its pull...in this wonderful tale of bravery and intrigue that deserves to become another staple of the holidays." --The San Francisco Chronicle Strange things begin to happen the minute young Kay Harker boards the train to go home for Christmas and finds himself under observation by two very shifty-looking characters. Arriving at his destination, the boy is immediately accosted by a bright-eyed old man with a mysterious message: “The wolves are running.” Soon danger is everywhere, as a gang of criminals headed by the notorious wizard Abner Brown and his witch wife Sylvia Daisy Pouncer gets to work. What does Abner Brown want? The magic box that the old man has entrusted to Kay, which allows him to travel freely not only in space but in time, too. The gang will stop at nothing to carry out their plan, even kidnapping Kay’s friend, the tough little Maria Jones, and threatening to cancel Christmas celebrations altogether. But with the help of his allies, including an intrepid mouse, a squadron of Roman soldiers, the legendary Herne the Hunter, and the inventor of the Box of Delights himself, Kay just may be able rescue his friend, foil Abner Brown’s plot, and save Christmas, too."

For it is a cliché. We can probably let Lewis Carroll get away with it in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as it’s a foundational example in children’s literature (and it becomes positively admirable in Through the Looking Glass when Carroll inverts it and Alice is told that she’s nothing but a thing in the Red King’s dream), but even there it’s an unsatisfactory rug-pull. Poet John Masefield's 1935 British Empire-era fantasy finds twelve-year-old Kay Harker home from his boarding school just in time to help a magical old Punch and Judy showman. At least, that seems to be what happens. The plot's pretty convoluted. But the images Masefield conjures up are gorgeous. Because I was reading them simultaneously, I couldn't resist making numerous comparisons between The Box of Delights and The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. In many ways, the books are similar, right down to the involvement of folk hero Herne the Hunter in both stories, and the midwinter setting. But I felt much more comfortable in the world of The Dark is Rising. Even when I didn't fully understand an allusion, I still knew exactly what was happening and how each event contributed to the overall story arc. There were times in The Box of Delights when I had to re-read passages to be sure I had even a vague sense of what was going on, and in general, it just felt very slow to me, even though lots of things were happening.

Contents

The book that always had the magic of a snowy English Christmas…. It’s still a lovely book, magical and funny, to be read by anybody of any age.” —The Horn Book

Then there's Kay. People offer Kay money, mysterious and fabulous gifts, opportunities to time travel and experience magical events, and speak of him and to him as though he is the King of England. No reason is given for this. He does not appear to be nobility, particularly smart, or particularly good looking. He lives in a manor house, has an endless supply of funds, and his only guardian is "the beautiful Caroline Louisa." Where are his parents? Who is Caroline Louisa? At first I thought she was his sister, but she's more like a nanny, I guess. He's apparently so wonderful that all he needs in the way of guardianship is a beautiful young woman to cater to his every whim.When Kay comes home for the holidays, he meets a strange man who warns him, "The Wolves are running," and entrusts him with a magical Box to keep safe. The evil Abner Brown is after the box with his gang of kidnappers and cutthroats, and when people begin disappearing in Kay's town, Kay must use the Box to travel into the Past to save his friends. The inclusion of lots of Christmas carols does give the show a festive air and there are some excellent moments of puppetry with Toby, the travelling showman’s dog, a marvellous Phoenix, and a delightful shadow puppet show. However, this production (directed by Justin Audibert, which was so acclaimed in its 2017 and 2018 productions at Wilton Music Hall) has lost something in its transfer into the grander modern setting of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre where scale and theatricality has replaced intimacy and atmospherics, and the result feels a long show for a young child to sit through and for this reviewer at least, it fell a little short of the high expectations of a magical evening. This witty and wonderful children's novel by the onetime Poet Laureate of the UK is widely beloved on the other side of the pond, but lesser known here. A travesty, that, since it's a magic box in itself: a magical adventure that begins with a boy on his way home for Christmas, stopped by a man who implores him, 'And now, Master Harker, of Seekings, now that the Wolves are Running, as you will have seen, perhaps you would do something to stop their Bite?' Enter wizards and witches, mice, Roman soldiers, the toughest little girl you'll ever meet, and Christmas just might be saved after all. In 1895, Masefield returned to sea on a windjammer destined for New York City. However, the urge to become a writer and the hopelessness of life as a sailor overtook him, and in New York, he deserted ship. He lived as a vagrant for several months, before returning to New York City, where he was able to find work as an assistant to a bar keeper.

That phrase was the best part of this book for me. It stated immediate evil and drew me in, plus it kept me going when nothing else made sense. This John Masefield tale is a Christmas favourite for many and seems to have influenced the Narnia saga. I would also dare to say that it has some elements that may have influenced the Harry Potter stories as well such as the young hero, railway stations, snow-filled villages, hot drinks, and magic. Why does the evil Abner want the Box of Delights? He sure goes to a lot of trouble to get it, but why? We never find out. He steals a lot of jewels, kidnaps a lot of people, and all supposedly to get the Box of Delights. But then he seems content to run off to an island with his jewels, without the Box. Why was the Box so central to his plans if he already had the jewels and his island all prepared? This question is never answered satisfactorily. This is a curious mixture of reality and fantasy: we have gangsters, magic, time travel. At times it was difficult to know just what was imagery and what was fantasy. It was interesting that, unlike in a lot of books, here we get children operating both on their own and with adults. I enjoyed the old-style British reality, such as the interactions with the police. I also liked the integration of religion into the essence of the book.In 1894, Masefield boarded the Gilcruix, destined for Chile. He recorded his experiences while sailing through the extreme weather. Upon reaching Chile, Masefield suffered from sunstroke and was hospitalized. He eventually returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steam ship. Eleven-year-old me would have been enchanted with all the period detail & would have giddily given it four stars. Old-old me says, eh, it's a three.

So far, so fairly traditional children's fantasy. But its Christmas setting in a snowbound corner of England (with particular resonances for this very festive season - all the grown-ups conspire to be snowed in elsewhere, leaving the children pretty much alone to enjoy their travails) and the dreamy, poetic language of author John Masefield come together to make it something of a seasonal classic that certainly bears repeat readings year after year. What a difference a few decades (and the full text) make! I’m so glad I’ve returned to this amazing story. I see it as a bridge between George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis, bringing in elements of almost every story before and after it. It is a continuous story, but it’s also a series of episodes that sometimes veer into the bizarre. For example, most of the town is “scrobbled” by a gang, and no one, including the police, seems to care very much, even about small children being whisked away for days at a time. Kay seems to have total freedom to do anything he likes, which sometimes involves adventures that could be extremely perilous. For me, though, all of this works together in a dreamy story that invites all kinds of symbolic interpretation but will never reveal whether any particular interpretation is intended. I wouldn’t want it to make any more logical sense than it does—though I see that this mysterious, mystical aspect of it was surely too much for my elementary-school understanding. I only wish I’d rediscovered it in time to read it to my kids. We would have had a grand time laughing and puzzling through it together. A design drawing of the scene where the character of Peter becomes a trout and dives and swims through a pool. Photograph: Tom Piper/RSC And Christmas, after all, is just a dream. We spend twenty-four days planning, organising, imagining the perfect day and wake up on the 25th to discover it’s nothing like our vision. What matters, really, is not the day, but the dream that precedes it. The vision of Christmas defines the season. The Box of Delights is the vision of a children’s adventure book, full of fantastical feats and strange magics before revealing them to be airy nothings. The ending also reframes the prim middle-classness of it all. At first it seems outrageous that Kay Harker is entrusted with the Box of Delights for no other reason than he is a well spoken, privately educated boy and therefore obviously the protagonist. But once you discover that this is all his dream, it makes sense. The way that the great and secret powers of the world rush to his aid, that all animals and supernatural beings adore him, that all of history is his playground, becomes almost satire, almost a sneer at books that do not have the honesty to own themselves as wish-fulfilment.

To be fair to the BBC, there was an audience for this stuff. I was a well-mannered bourgeois prep-school boy and I had grown up reading these books: Lewis Carroll and E. Nesbit, Richmal Crompton and A. A. Milne. As children we didn’t understand that these things might be out of date or jar with contemporary mores. These were the kind of stories we were given, so these were the kind of stories we wanted. Every chapter in this book is marvelous, but the real delight derives from Masefield's style and the idiosyncratic, colorful speech of his various characters...Lovely stuff. Stephen Boxer is a genial Hawlings, Richard Lynch an increasingly comical Abner and Claire Price relishes the expanded role of witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer. Tom Kanji as a conman (“ha-ha … what?” languidly ending his sentences) is one of several to capture the feel of the era. It is all deftly done, not so much scrobbling as gently leading us into Masefield-land. Tis the night before Christmas and little Kay shall become as small and as fast as a bird! and he shall encounter wolves & wizards & witches & thieves! and he shall visit strange places and he shall enter the past and he shall protect his precious Box of Delights and he shall visit a friendly mouse! and he will deal with all of this with a certain nonchalance because it's not like he hasn't done this sort of thing before!