Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freddy and the Dragon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n by Kevin W. Parker<\/p>\n\n\n\n WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don\u2019t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I realized that most of the books I\u2019ve discussed so far are the early ones in the series, so to balance things out I thought I\u2019d go straight to the end and see if the last one maintains the level of the earliest ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The short review is \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t,\u201d but it\u2019s rather cheating to leave it at that so let me elaborate a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first thing that struck me upon beginning the book is that the series seems to be overshadowed by its continuity, almost engulfed by everything that has gone before. In the first chapter alone there are extended references to Cowboy, Simon the Dictator, Flying Saucer Plans, and whichever book it is in which Jimmy has his circus. And that seems to continue on into the book. It\u2019s interesting in a way to be reminded of all the neat stuff that\u2019s happened with the Bean Farm animals, but overall I almost wish that we could wipe the slate clean and start over again: let\u2019s have a new adventure and stop dwelling so much on the old ones, as entertaining as they might have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story itself begins with Jinx, Freddy, and Samuel Jackson, the mole, returning from a trip to New England, Freddy of course riding his horse, Cy, and Jinx riding Bill, the goat. They are surprised to find that the townspeople are not greeting them with much enthusiasm and soon learn that some animals have been terrorizing the area (breaking windows, digging up gardens, etc.), and the some of the residents blame Freddy and his friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main plot thread, of course, is Freddy solving this series of crimes and getting to the culprits behind it all. I find a certain lack of enthusiasm for relating how this happens, which is telling. One point to make is that there\u2019s no clear villain in the piece: the main concern is that the townspeople themselves will come out to the farm and lynch the animals. (Was Brooks getting paranoid in his old age?) Good old Mr. Edward Henry Anderson makes a cameo appearance, but there\u2019s no cracking villain like Mr. Flint the cowboy or the classic Simon the rat. To summarize, the bad guys are holed up in a cave near Lake Oteseraga, and Freddy just has to figure this out and smoke them out. He gets some help from new arrival Percy the bull, who, after he\u2019s captured, turns out to be both the cows\u2019 father and a former associate of the bad guys. Percy is also a recipient of the by now well-established cheap perfume water pistol treatment, another continuity element that was hysterically funny when first used but is perhaps wearing out its welcome by this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dragon comes in when Freddy needs to come up with an idea for Jimmy Wiggs to raise money for his baseball team, and Uncle Ben (my alter ego according to Connie) suggests a mock-dragon, sort of Chinese-style, with Freddy and Jinx inside. Brooks does work the dragon into the main plot to some extent\u2014using it to almost literally \u201csmoke out\u201d the bad guys\u2014but overall it seems kind of incidental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s also a headless horseman, a ploy by the bad guys to keep the good guys from tracking them down, but again it seems like more of an add-on than a solid element of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the weaknesses, there are still some vintage Brooks touches.He introduces the aptly-named (as always) character of Mrs. Talcum, Mrs. Peppercorn\u2019s perbadedtly sdeezing aunt, whose poetry even takes into account her inability to use the letters \u201ceb\u201d and \u201ced.\u201d We also have Samuel Jackson the mole acting as the conscience of Percy the bull and Jinx giving a kitten purring lessons. My favorite bit, though, is associated with Mr. and Mrs. Webb preparing to explore the aforementioned cave. Brooks explains that they had planned to walk along the roof since this was the safest way to explore a strange place where there may be danger. He goes on to remark, \u201cof course, some people can\u2019t do it.\u201d (Most people, in my experience.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n We learn as well of some of the other towns around Centerboro, as in addition to the already-established Tushville and South Pharisee there are such euphoniously nomenclatured metropolises (as Mr. Groper might put it) as Clamville and Upper Cattawampus. I wonder, though, just who would choose to live in a town named Gomorrah Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My overall evaluation seems to be similar to the other weaker books I\u2019ve reviewed: some good elements, but the book as a whole just doesn\u2019t seem to hang together. I would add to that that the effort also seems a bit tired. Would it be sacrilegious to suggest that it\u2019s possible to have too many Freddy books, that perhaps Brooks should have retired Freddy and his friends and moved on? It\u2019s like a classic television series that has exhausted its ideas but stays on the air because it\u2019s still making money for the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the book is weak primarily in comparison to the strongest books in the series. I still found it entertaining, and that, I suppose, is the final criterion: a bad Freddy book still beats a good many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books Freddy and the Dragon by Kevin W. Parker WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don\u2019t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you. I realized that most of the books I\u2019ve discussed so far are the early ones in the series, so to balance things out I thought I\u2019d go straight to the end and see if the last one maintains the level of the earliest ones. The short review is \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t,\u201d but it\u2019s rather cheating to leave it at that so let me elaborate a bit. The first thing that struck me upon beginning the book is that the series seems to be overshadowed by its continuity, almost engulfed by everything that has gone before. In the first chapter alone there are extended references to Cowboy, Simon the Dictator, Flying Saucer Plans, and whichever book it is in which Jimmy has his circus. And that seems to continue on into the book. It\u2019s interesting in a way to be reminded of all the neat stuff that\u2019s happened with the Bean Farm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3287","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n