The not-so-magic FarAway tree
Good for firewood
I have learned the hard way in the past that it’s always a mistake to react too quickly on social media, but I’m breaking my own rules here.
I just saw the trailer for a new film version of The Magic Faraway Tree
- a contemporary cinema version of Enid Blyton’s children’s books that started coming out in series from 1939 and ended in 1951.
The film stars Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, both of whom I would normally watch in everything and anything. It’s set now-ish, so the story includes WiFi and desperately annoying children, there are excruciating cameos from the likes of Jennifer Saunders, and it all looks very, very CGI.
I hated it.
Who needs imagination when you have AI and CGI?
But why would a middle-aged man pushing on 60 have an opinion on this anyway?
I had a copy when I was roughly 9 years old. It was hardback, but there was no dustcover or illustrations in my edition, and it was pretty tatty. I grew out of kids’ books very quickly, but what I did like was the leap of imagination required to rationalise finding new worlds that were magical when your own world was empty, cold and dull. I didn’t much connect with the stories or the kids themselves - the book wasn’t written for me, but it was never a problem. To be frank, it wasn’t that good. At the time, there was already a Blyton backlash, and my mother was quite clear about it being ‘low’ literature (but stopped short of taking it away). The lack of images meant I was free to create my own images in my head instead of being shoehorned into someone else’s world.
I was beguiled by the concept of running away to somewhere better, and every day, like in the book, it was a different better place, and it was something of my own creation- so it was a pretty modest world. This new version looks like a very expensive concept-driven, no-expense-spared theme park-style wonderland that has no connection with the real world but looks a lot like franchise building. It’s excruciating. The kids have to run away from the real world because they have no wifi. I ran away from mine because I had next to nothing. It’s very white, middle-class, and superficial. I hope kids realise how worthless it is and turn away.