2022 Catch-up Review: Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

When I picked up this book, I wasn't particularly prepared to love it. But I was definitely expecting something magical and something that explained Mary Poppins since she is such a mystery in the Disney film.

While it was 'magical' in terms of the extraordinary flights of fantasy the writer takes us off into, it did not feel magical. For the most part I found it quite disturbing. There was so much about it that was dark, and there was so much that was so 'secret' that the children constantly questioned themselves about the true-ness of the things they saw and experienced.

When I was done with the book, I felt it had been strongly lacking in some sort of theme or something (a plot, to be exact) that tied the whole thing together. But now, as I write this review, I realise that if there was a theme, it was that little children should keep quiet about what they 'see' and 'hear' -- grown-ups wouldn't believe them anyway, and yes, they would forget these things themselves. Did I say this book was disturbing already? -- incredibly so, the more I think about it.

Mary Poppins was this mysterious stranger who walks into the lives of the Banks children, just like that. She does what she pleases with them without rhyme or reason. Then she leaves. She is not likeable at all. She is snooty, vain, bad-tempered, uncommunicative and unapproachable. It makes one wonder how the children could possibly like her. Perhaps, it was not so much that they liked her but that they constantly hung about her and tried to please because she had them by the nose (so to speak). Unusually interesting things always happened around Mary Poppins. What child would not be curious and excited?

Another reviewer suggested that the syrup she gives them when she first meets them might be something of a hallucinatory drug or something that keeps the children by her side and quiet. Whatever it might be, that sounds like a likely theory because really this story is INCREDIBLY disturbing!

I might have harped on about how this might have spoilt the movie for me. But while the film had been a favourite as a child, whilst watching it several times as an adult with my children, I had discovered that I didn't really like the character of Mary Poppins at all. I have now discovered that Julie Andrews played the character according to the book for the most part. Of course, she was a pretty Mary Poppins, and she could be charming. But there was nothing charming about the original.

Where the writing was concerned, I found it rather bland and flat. There was nothing striking or charming or whimsical or poetic or literary about the writing. I ended up finishing the book only to get it over and done with.