Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books
Freddy and the Ignormus
by Kevin W. Parker
WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don’t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you.
I have long stated that Ignormus is my favorite of the Freddy books, but I’ve never worked out why to my full satisfaction. A full explanation would require re-reading all of the other books with comparison in mind, but I will start with the one and go on from there.
The plotting is what strikes me first. From beginning to end the story scoots along with scarcely a wrong turn or unnecessary element. Even the incidental bits that don’t advance the plot, such as the ones involving Minx, have a Shakespearian quality of comic relief to them.
Just six pages in we are introduced to the “Big Woods,” and are given an image of it as a scary and mysterious place, an image that underlies the entire story. Freddy may scËoff at this image, but even he is affected by it, as indicated by his venture into it with Theodore the frog. This is a marvelous study in psychology, with them goading one another into venturing ever deeper into the Big Woods. And then, upon realizing that they are indeed scared, leaving in a very great hurry. Anyone who has done something similar should recognize the experience. Even my wife, the amateur naturalist, has said that she had no problems venturing into the woods at dusk, but once she turned around and saw the safe haven of the road in the distance, she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Simon comes along to compound both the threat and the mystery, by mentioning the Ignormus.
We then have our first comic relief, with Mrs. Wiggins in the swing, Freddy in the prickly bush, and Jinx’s boastful sister Minx. (And will we ever know how Kurt Wiese felt about being obliged to do such illustrations as a cow in a swing?)
The next plot event of note is the superb story set pieceË of Freddy entering the Big Woods from one location and Charles and Weedley entering from another, only to have Freddy panicked by an apparent pig-headed, rooster-tailed monster and Charles and Weedley panicked by Freddy’s resulting scream. It’s a very funny bit, but at the same time we can see the reactions of the characters, which to them are anything but funny.
The plot continues from there: Freddy discovers that the bank has been robbed; he visits the Grimby house (in disguise as a hunter with Theodore as his dog) and finds mysterious goings-on there. (This harrowing episode is followed, incidentally, by the second comic relief, in which Freddy pretends to be an Irishman and repeatedly upstages the boastful Minx.) Complications build: oats are found in Freddy’s closet, the Ignormus is writing threatening letters, and the Ignormus himself comes floating down on Freddy and Jinx.
Then we abruptly see a drastic shift in direction. Everything so far has been changing for the worse, and Ëit bottoms out when animals start leaving the Bean farm in fear of the Ignormus. Charles comes to the rescue (how often does this happen?) with a magnificent speech in which he rallies the animals. Freddy astutely realizes that, with the animals energized, it is time for action, and he prepares for an assault on the Grimby house. The battle is engaged, and the FAR army is clearly victorious. But it is not yet a complete victory, as Whibley points out. Soon, though, the Ignormus is unmasked and Simon is captured. The rats are dealt with, the stolen items are returned, and Freddy victoriously tacks the Ignormus’s hide to the barn door.
Finally, in a funny but thematically appropriate tag scene, Jinx and Freddy take turns scaring each other, with Jinx wisely concluding “There’ll always be Ignormuses.”
So it is a beautifully organized story. On the other hand, except for the familiar favorites, there is little in the way of new and entertaining characters. The only new ones of significanceË introduced are Minx and a couple of insects, and none of these are particularly satisfying.
But what appeals to me most of all, I think, is the thematic element to the story. Underneath all the humor and the elegant plotting, as enjoyable as those might be, there is the Ignormus. Making comparisons to Moby Dick is perhaps exaggerated, but there is something about both the white whale and the mysterious monster of the Big Woods that becomes almost mythic, an archetype. So much of fear is fear of the unknown, and the Ignormus stands for all of that: things that go bump in the night, monsters under the bed, whatever is lurking out there in the darkness. In so many horror stories, there is an Ignormus of some sort of other, and finding out what it really is is an end to the horror (and sometimes even disappointing, interestingly enough).
And that’s enough of profundity for a review of a children’s book. I have just one more point to make, and that is that many adventure books, including tôhe Freddy ones, can be judged on the quality of the leading villain. In Ignormus, the leading villain doesn’t even exist! How’s that for a distinction?