Mary Poppins (Hardcover)

It sounds exciting and innocuous enough. But don't be fooled. These magical adventures are not entirely harmless. Mary Poppins is actually a witch whose heart is far from pure. True, Travers doesn't ostensibly present Mary Poppins as a witch, but her magical abilities clearly originate in a form of paganism closely connected to Eastern religions and new age philosophy. Nowhere are Mary Poppins' credentials as a witch more evident than a night-time incident when the Banks children find themselves in a zoo, with all the roles reversed - the facility is run by animals, and the cages contain humans. The fun is hardly innocuous, because there is talk of animals eating humans, and in the Snake House Mary Poppins' true heritage is revealed - she is a first cousin (once removed) to the serpents, one of whom she regards as the "Lord of the Jungle". Her kinship to the snake with the "terrible little forked tongue" is deeply rooted in Eastern philosophy, evident in what the snake hisses: "The same substance composes us - the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star - we are all one, all moving to the same end ... Beast and bird and stone and star - we are all one, all one - " This new age philosophy is far from harmless fantastic fun, but is frighteningly sinister.

And if that isn't enough, Mary Poppins is herself a most beastly character. Her vanity knows no limits, as she constantly examines her reflection in every polished doorway. She is must cruel and unkind towards the children, showing them little or no affection. One critical writer once observed that Mary Poppins is `perhaps the most stodgy, negligent, abusive, elusive, misleading (and misguided), vituperative, vain and priggish beast ever conceived in the mind of an author.' It's a cruel assessment of Mary Poppins, but not far from the mark. The Banks children spend most of their time cowering in fear of her, never sure if she is going to treat them with meanness or magic. And whenever they are treated to magic courtesy of her witchcraft, she immediately messes with their minds by denying that it ever happened. Even the old woman in the shoe was more kind than this.

Yet that's not all to the twisted adventures of Mary Poppins. One entire chapter, Bad Tuesday, features one of the Banks children in a most disobedient mood, taking great pleasure and delight in his evil deeds. It gives him a most wonderful feeling. Sadly, this behaviour is encouraged rather than discouraged. In another incident, the children travel around the world and meet stereotyped people from all four corners of the earth. Not surprisingly, this chapter has been majorly `revised' in the 1981 edition, which has softened Travers' original political incorrectness by changing these people to different animals from around the world.

Despite her despicable character, when Mary Poppins leaves the Banks family at the end of the novel, the children are surprisingly most distressed at her sudden departure. They reject their mother's soothing words of comfort, asserting `Mary Poppins is the only person I want in the world!' Please! What poor fools! The truth is that the Banks family is a rather disfunctional family, and father and mother Banks play such a limited role in the lives of their children, that these four children would mistakenly rather have this beastly witch than nothing. Surely they are wrong. Despite the lure of her magic, a normal home and functional family is more blessed without the real Mary Poppins. I for one don't want this haughty and disagreeable character in my home taking care of my children. Keep this woman and this book out of my house!

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