Most people will have grown up with the Disney classic Mary Poppins. The tale of how Walt Disney wheedled and cajoled author P.L. Travers into allowing him to make a movie of her novel are legend. The movie became a huge success, yet Travers was extremely unhappy with the result. She was unhappy about the music, the animation, the liberties taken with the text, and how the character of Mary Poppins was watered down and re-packaged as a more genial creation for American family entertainment.
Hence, it can come as a bit of a shock to read P.L. Travers’s original creation. Where Disney’s version had the delightfully prim Julie Andrews, Travers’s Poppins is decidedly more acerbic and unpredictable. Her Mary Poppins has the darkness of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the surreal nonsense of G.K. Chesteron’s fiction.
Novelist and Actress Pamela Lyndon Travers
Pamela Lyndon Travers (1899-1996) was an Australian novelist, actress and journalist born in Maryborough, Queensland. She published poems as a teenager in The Bulletin. She then toured Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespearean company before moving to England in 1924. She never married.
In 1934 Travers published Mary Poppins. It was followed by another seven Mary Poppins books. Only the first three books in the series feature Mary Poppins arriving and leaving. The last five books record other incidents that occurred during Mary Poppins’s first three visits.
What Happens in Mary Poppins
The story of Mary Poppins follows a series of frequently bizarre and surreal adventures. The Banks family are in need of a nanny, and in blows Mary Poppins with the wind. Unlike other job applicants, Mary Poppins immediately let’s everyone know that it is she who is in control, not the other way around.
When Mrs Banks asks for references, Mary Poppins answers quite matter of factly, ‘Oh, I make it a rule never to give references.’
From the beginning, the reader knows that Mary Poppins is quite autocratic, and makes all of her own rules.
The Banks children, Jane, Michael and the baby twins John and Barbara are introduced to Mary Poppins’s quite fantastic world. It seems their otherworldly nanny has many unusual friends, and lives in an alternate universe of talking animals and star people.
The Appeal of Mary Poppins
The most startling thing about the novel is Mary Poppins herself. She has many qualities that in everyday company are not seen as virtues. She’s vain, abrupt, stern, short tempered, unpredictable and almost cold. Why does the reader warm to her so much?
It is her ability to conjure magical experiences that make her so wonderful. Her crisp and impatient manner belie someone who is keen to move on from the dull day-to-day world and inhabit a more interesting universe. Like Oscar Wilde, the only sin for Mary Poppins is ennui. Boredom is something she could never countenance. A day in her company is sure to mean constant change, unpredictability and excitement. No wonder her appeal never wanes.
The Real Mary Poppins Lives in Print
P.L. Travers writes in a crisp, clearly distilled prose that makes reading her a tonic and a delight. While the Disney classic has charmed millions, Mary Poppins remains unknown until she has been read from the pages P.L. Travers created her on.
Chris Saliba - Chris Saliba is a freelance writer. Read more of his workplace articles at chrissalibafreelancewriter.blogspot.com
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