Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren

I first read this book as a kid–I inherited it from one or another of my
siblings–and it was with fond memories that I bought a new copy some
while back to read to my oldest boy. Fond but faded memories; all I
could really remember about Pippi was that she lives all by herself, and
is extremely unconventional, and her father is a sea-captain, and that
in Pippi in the South Seas she and her friends Tommy and Annika go
to visit her father on the tropical island where he’s now a cannibal
king. In short, most of my memories were from the other two Pippi
books.

So given that, and given my recent unhappy experience with
James and the Giant Peach, I opened this particular volume
with some sense of trepidation. Having now re-read it, my feelings are
mixed.

Pippi is undeniably a fun character, and her tall tales are easily the
high point of the book:

Once my grandmother had a servant named Malin. She had chilblains on her
feet, but otherwise there was nothing wrong with her. The only annoying
thing was that as soon as company came she would rush at them and bite
their legs. And bark! Oh, how she would bark! You could hear it all
through the neighborhood, but it was only because she was playful. Only,
of course, strangers didn’t always understand that. The dean’s wife, an
elderly woman, came to see Grandmother once soon after Malin first came,
and when Malin came dashing at her and bit her in the ankle, the dean’s
wife screamed so loudly that it scared Malin, so that her teeth clamped
together and she couldn’t get them apart. There she sat, stuck to the
dean’s wife’s ankle until Friday. And Grandmother had to peel the
potatoes herself. But at least it was well done. She peeled so well
that when she was done there were no potatoes left–only peelings. But
after that Friday the dean’s wife never came to call on Grandmother
again. She just never could take a joke.

Pippi’s also outrageously strong, and in between her tall tales, Pippi
occasionally gets to do something fun–like carry the policemen who’ve
come to take her to an orphanage out of the house when she’s tired of
making them run after her. Apart from Pippi’s stories, the humor is
almost entirely slapstick.

So, yeah, there’s some genuinely funny stuff here. David enjoyed it
thoroughly, especially the bits I thought were a bit too silly.

But on the other hand, nothing much happens. It’s not so
much a story about Pippi as it is a collection of sketches in which she
gets to perform, always in contrast to next-door neighbors Tommy and Annika,
who are as colorless a pair of goody-two-shoes as you’d ever want to meet.

Since David enjoyed this one I’ll no doubt be looking for the other two
Pippi books–but I’m no longer so thrilled about the whole thing.