Status Updates From Mary Poppins Opens the Door...

In “Happily Ever After,” Michael asks about the short period of time in between the end of the old year and the start of the New Years. This introduces the temporal ecistance of the cracks, an in between and eternal place.

Again there is the suggestion that Mary Poppins is far older and a more abstract power than the Middle lass British family knows. The idea that everything on the Earth arose from the sea as recalled by an ancient turtle. This adds to the unifying quality of Mary Poppins mysticism.

The entire chapter ends with the mysterious woman, Miss Calico who appears in a Blue Moon who sells the candy horses which allow the children fly about. She arrives and she goes and takes her horses with her. The magic comes and goes.

I’ve never seen the gingerbread canes described in this chapter and so I had a hard time picturing what is going on.

P.L. Travers based Neleus on a classical-style, white marble and Portland stone sculpture called “Boy with Dolphin.” The Sculptor: The fountain was created in 1862 by the Pre-Raphael Ute sculptor Alexander Munro.Location: The sculpture is located in the Rose Garden near Grosvenor Gate in Hyde Park, London. Travers is criticizing the tendency of the English to gather artwork to preserve it.

The marble boy’s name is Neleus According to myth he was the son of Poseidon and Tyro, and brother of Pelias. According to Pausanias, Neleus was the son of Cretheus, King of Iolcus, who was himself a son of Aeolus. Travers is again mixing classical references. Not a happy family in adulthood.

Another reminder. The old man is likely reading Rudyard Kipling.
Collection “Just So Stories” which contains the narrative of how the elephant got his trunk.

One point more, the king who gives up his exclusive academic research and returns to the love of his wife, turns out to be “Old King Kole.” Other literature gets pulled in these stories.

People in authority, grounds keepers, policemen and others are often depicted as bossy busy boys. The story of the over-educated king seems a satire of the entire encyclopedia Britannia approach.

Once again in the world that Trevors portrays there is real peril for those who treat things of magic with unworthy hands. To be forever condemned in a music box environment for what you thought was your dearest wish is a terrible thing.

It’s a wonderful thing to imagine that every living thing has its own melody music. Again very much tied to the Romantics, who loved the Aeolian Harp. I had to look up Jan’s piece “oranges and lemons” but the melody was still recognizable when I found it. “Pop Goes the Weasel “ seems an odd choice for Mary Poppins.

In this chapter we meet Mr. Twigley, another cousin of Mary Poppins who works with musical boxes and is gifted (or cursed) with 7 magic wishes. The spell comes around every 90 years. Twigley claims to be Methuselah‘s grandfather. (How old that makes Mary Poppins no one can guess)

We are off to meet another of Mary Poppins‘s family. However there is a slight cloud in the first chapter when the children ask Mary Poppins if she would ever leave. Of course they hope she never does but anyone who knows anything about supernatural manifestations knows that sooner or later the magic must leave.

Mary Poppins returns, replacing an incoming skyrocket. In this chapter we first hear the idea that having one’s hand hand shaken by a chimney sweep is good luck. That point is made in the film in the earliest rendition of the song “Chim Chim Cher-ee”. It suggests that whoever wrote the screenplay had read for more than just the first Mary Poppins book.

The author’s note contains mixes melancholy and hope. She assures the child-reader that someday soon fireworks and rockets meant to delight will return to Great Britain. There is no overt mention of the war, Nor the terrifying reality of incoming bombs rockets and missiles,but the knowing reader recognizes the lament and hope.

This third volume which picks up right after Mary Poppins for away on a kite, is interested also because it starts with an authors note. The first chapter is called 5 November and the speaker explains the tradition of Guy Fawkes day. The copyright day being 1943 the author felt compelled to explain a holiday that involves fireworks and explosions.