Edward Lear, king of nonsense, is best known for his poem "The Owl and the Pussycat." Great poem, for sure, but not my favourite. My vote for best Lear poem goes to the wonderfully absurd "The Jumblies."
Here's the plot.
A troop of odd little creatures (green heads, blue hands) decide to go to sea in a sieve. Their craft isn't exactly sea-worthy, and the Jumblies make things worse by choosing to set sail on a winter's morn, on a stormy sea. Their friends quite sensibly warn them of the danger.
Do the Jumblies listen? Not for a second. As Lear blithely advises, "they don't care a button, they don't care a fig."
The next part's predictable. "The water it soon came in, it did, the water it soon came in." Surely the Jumblies will get nervous now? Well, actually, no. They come up with an interesting and original response, which is to wrap their feet in pinky paper all folded neat and fasten it down with a pin. I know -- doesn't sound like much. But guess what? It actually works! And they pass the night in a crockery-jar and somehow find themselves, astonishingly, en route to to the Western Sea.
"And each of them said, 'How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!"
I'll skip to the chase. Everything works out FINE. They travel to the Lakes and the Torrible Zone and have scads of adventures and "no end of Stilton cheese." Twenty years later, they sail home, and their stay-at-home friends are so impressed that they vow to go to sea in a sieve themselves.
Okay, so what's my point? My point is that I adore this poem, and after spending too much time trying to figure out why, I think I've got it. I think it's because being a writer — and especially trying to make one's living as a writer — has a lot in common with a Jumblie journey. Each time you begin a new a book, you head out to sea in a sieve. Each time you submit to a publisher, each time your work is exposed to review . . . you set sail again with only a bit of pinky paper, folded neat, to keep you afloat. Seas are stormy. Water comes in. But if you're lucky and paddle hard for twenty years or more, you may get to visit the Hills of the Chankly Bore — and come back to tell the tale.
I love this poem because the Jumblies are — in spite of all odds — so determined. So cheerfully cocky. I love it that when their neighbours predict dire fates, they don't care a button or a fig. They sail away to places unknown. They believe it will all work out, and — wow! — it does.
The Jumblies are my literary heroes. They ought to have a blog named after them. Right?
