Educating by love - detailing a way back to natural creativity

Part VI: Review of Sam Garton's I am Otter by Béatrice Dumiche

We left off in early December discussing how Otter & Keeper educate each other through humor - let's pick up here detailing how education through love can get us back to a natural creativity. 

Special note - black & white drawing herein of Mij © Gavin Maxwell & courtesy of The Ring of Bright Water

So, I am Otter represents the initial story of a series which aims to gather a community of readers who enjoy playfulness because they find back on their own - however unconsciously guided by Otter like Keeper - to what made the success of human evolution and to become inventive again.  For that reason, it questions a traditional education which relies on idealized models of adults to conserve social values as if they were natural and therefore eternal.  It teaches conformism as a way to materialistic achievement which would be the only valuable form of personal recognition. More precisely, it takes position against the heritage of nineteenth century’s positivism which related behavior to moral patterns in which to submit if one wants to play a significant role in society.  The highly improbable couple of Otter and Keeper can appear as a grotesque provocation to this crude realism which extends its censorship to imagination: Keeper’s symbolic femininity along with Otter’s innocent vitality are indeed a provocation for all who consider life according to pre-determined categories while negating life’s natural evolution by exchange and adaption. The synergy between

Otter and Keeper demonstrates that the oddness is not there where it is normally supposed to be because their undeniable reciprocal love lets the readers guess that the quest for perfection is properly absurd.  It means running after an abstraction while losing the consciousness of the natural faculties which effectively guaranteed the survival of humanity and which Otter is there to remember and promote in a contemporary adequate form by revealing to children the power of their own fantasy to transform adults and let them travel back to a more adapted way of living making them actually happy rather than projecting their hopes of personal achievement on their offspring.

Sam Garton’s choice of an otter who bears a generic name is nothing but just a fancy: she is the emblematic representative of a species which perfectly matches his educational purpose and is already associated with a narrative tradition where an otter and its keeper became famous book-characters much loved by the public.  So, Garton, in his interviews, refers to Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water which tells the story of Mijbil - probably the first otter ever kept as a pet in urban surroundings – tells how he borrows major traits from him to feature Otter. More generally, her encounter with Keeper is inspired from the Maxwell’s humorous account of his life with his unpredictable playful animal whose mischievous and exclusive being transformed his existence deeply. There is some resemblance between Mijbil’s revengeful attacks on the contents of Maxwell’s home when he left the otter alone and Otter’s mess while Keeper is away: Gavin Maxwell’s and Sam Garton’s book both show that living with an otter is a fight to keep one’s own space and not let the otter totally overwhelm by its exuberant energy. Garton’s originality is that he had transposed this realistic, yet already literary exploited, element in his own narration to give it some inner consistence and credibility. Otter appears not his subjective invention as if she would come out of nowhere, there are former references even for her as a drawn character since Gavin Maxwell himself studied Mijbil’s movements in sketches which revealed the remarkable flexibly of his otter body. Hence, Sam Garton’s reference to The Ring of Bright Water is actually the quest for a caution to legitimate his own Otter book as a fictional story founded on real characters, giving it both: existential density and veracity.

Otter’s evolutionary ability to change forms and adapt physically wouldn’t have been possible without Gavin Maxwell’s inspirational drawings which have a symbolic meaning linking natural capacities and psychological needs.  The animal’s flexibility becomes the symbol of Otter’s function as a transitional object which is no longer only associated with childhood and the special role it plays for acquiring personal autonomy at this stage of evolution. The fact that she is the companion of an adult, who, like Gavin Maxwell himself, is not an average man, underlines the specificity of the challenge. Keeper is a pioneer, as was Maxwell, because like him who explored the behavior of his pet otter and advocated for his species through its personalization, Keeper tries to understand the mystery of Otter’s vitality: their humoristic face-to-face however is more the look at a mirror as his passivity, his exhaustion, let him recognize how distant he has become from a creature who incarnates the success of evolution throughout ages. Unlike him who has lost the contact with his childhood, Otter represents the only species where the individuals keep playing throughout a lifetime. So, her natural existence becomes Keeper’s personal challenge - it is up to him to reconnect to his childhood by reacting to her and learning to live again.

With Sam Garton, Gavin Maxwell’s narration of his unusual experience with an otter which hits the imagination of readers becomes a symbolic dimension on a philosophical and psychological background which elevates the children’s book to the rank of an artwork: the simplicity of its language is just that of life which hides an unconscious complexity since evolution is instinctive and based on playfulness to sort out the fittest adaption for the survival of the species. Keeper’s encounter with Otter features a contemporary man meeting his imaginary, yet symbolically matching, origin where animal and man are intricately linked through the same evolutionary process despite their divergent development. This allows the author a cultural criticism of an unnatural way of living and the irrational behaviour it generates opposing a hyper-standardized social existence and most irrational individual quests for nature which create stress and frustration because the contradiction between both seems to have become insurmountable.

Otter lets Keeper’s crisis become evident while at the same time, she figures a way to distract him, as entering into a dialogue with her, means he already has transformed his relationship with childhood and has integrated it symbolically into his actions; freeing himself from the nostalgias which paralyzed him and hindered his evolution. She leads him and the readers of the book to change their minds about the meaning of childhood from the evolutional point of view. On the contrary, it appears their symbolic link with its primary energy which needs to be favored all the time for individual well-being and the development of a tolerant, yet coherent sociability. Thus, comforting and developing the structural power of childhood by encouraging, from the initial stages, creativity and autonomy in order to preserve lifelong adaptability becomes the state of modern children’s literature and not its adjustment to adult standards. Hence, children’s books play a fundamental role for literature as they set the relationship between reality and fiction training the public to recognize and interpret symbols according to their own vital needs and to put them in a larger perspective, often thanks to and encouraging humor. Sam Garton underlines that reading must be taught for the sake of human evolution to resolve the discrepancy between their aspirations and their materialistic culture which has inhibited their ability to relate to themselves and each other, crippling their fantasy and imagination along the way.

Otter and Keeper - An Education for both through humor

Part V - Review of Sam Garton's I am Otter by Béatrice Dumiche

With a main character like Otter, Sam Garton uses imagination to structure human thinking and acting and advocates games as a necessity for personal evolution throughout life because they help restore the link with former stages of existence and do the best to reinvent new relations with it. The arrival of Otter at Keeper’s home inverts exemplarily his own perspective on a society he has grown unconsciously tired of without finding an alternative to it as he is already stuck in its greyish dullness which he seems to get through in a sort of half-sleep in order to protect himself. His passivity, the opposite of her hyperactive playfulness, lets readers guess how societal organization takes individuals away from their own achievement while generating melancholy, loneliness and depression. Adapting to societal norms is not based on reciprocity, it is exclusively focused on productivity and normative standards conceived to increase it, which creates the feeling of an impersonal purpose against which there seems to be no remedy. This way, it cripples the aptitude to relate to others and exchange with them, and eventually, all the human faculties that open one to diversity and let one enjoy life.  An imbalance is created between a highly developed industrial civilization and the evolution of the human population which is led into psychological regression because they were taken away from their innate challenge which consists in the symbolical integration of individual diversity by imagination and creativity through empathy and love.

That’s why Otter, for whom playing is still an instinctive activity and who knows no limits in playing since it is her only way to exist, “gets into trouble” when she disturbs Keeper’s day and goes too far with her games. Her insistent antics – often uncontrolled and not thought through - to vie for Keeper’s undivided attention are the most touching appeals for love he has received because he matters to her since he is unique although she cannot appreciate much of his individuality. While he is apparently not socially recognized as somebody exceptional, Keeper means the world to Otter and her feelings help him reconnect with the vital energy he has kept in within himself as he is rather introverted. So, although he is still mostly a spectator or a slightly unwilling participant in her exuberant games, such as the concert she gives for him, he is fascinated by her innocent self-affirmation which he can’t help but fall in love with. There are of course, still remnants of his former passivity in his tolerance towards her, yet his major preoccupation is to protect the precious carefree vitality she brought back to him and to provide her with a place where she can express her imagination in perfect freedom for the betterment of her own development.  But, also because – and this is as important to him ‒ she brightens his weekends and gives him a personal reason to live and enjoy his life. Thus, her presence changes his own priorities and lets him find the inner strength to reconsider what is truly best for himself and leave behind what he was taught; ideas which are based on the transmission of normative standards which reduces creativity to only materialistic achievements.

His indulgence towards her unbridled playfulness is therefore not a sign of weakness, it shows his sovereignty and the wisdom he has acquired by meeting her - from the moment he let her settle down, he realized that he must take care to allow her to make the most of the current stage of her evolution in order for her to develop in the best way. Keeper also realizes it would be wrong to apply his grown-up standards to what she was doing or push her toward a pretended achievement. For example, the creation of the toast restaurant goes awry and she concludes for herself the mishap of her plan. So, his educational role doesn’t consist of telling her what she could have made better, it resides in his empathy to let her feel when she was too ambitions in letting her imagination go too far; overestimating her own capabilities. He helps her relate and understand a sense of scale while learning to recognize what is actually useful for her personal progress at the moment. Thus, his physical distance from her, which the illustrator emphasizes well and which she tries to surmount to get more of his attention and love, appears to be Keeper’s most efficient educational tool. He shows her that what she interprets as his frustrating and unjust indifference is only the symbolic representation of his difference which she must become aware of in order to increase her own creative faculties – not to please or impression him!  She must follow her natural development and accept it to evolve rather than measuring herself against Keeper – who cannot truly be a model for her as she is not a human and because she hasn’t grown up yet.

That’s why, when her unconditional love for him turns into self-denegation, he reminds her of the abilities he esteems she can be proud of, letting her know that he loves her precisely because of what she is and the joy her innocent playfulness brought into her life as well as his own. So, her awkwardness, which she was ashamed of and angry at, becomes part of her charm as it shows her desire to do her best to get his recognition (as well as that of the general public who, she hopes, will read her “ramblings”). Her mistakes can’t but touch since they hint to her desire to become socialized and do something useful. Keeper’s generosity and thoughtfulness allow her to understand that she is already on her way and that, even at her modest point, she contributes to the meaning of usefulness by giving it an emotional sense that he himself has been deprived of for too long. Thus, I am Otter is the expression of Keeper’s love for Otter. The artist, you’ll recall is Keeper’s alter ego, so the story of Keeper and Otter helps him share with others who will appreciate and even be transformed by Otter’s self-confident originality in order that they will develop their own creativity and appreciate social diversity just by daring to become a bit more themselves.

With Otter, Sam Garton created a character who readjusts the role of love in education because it becomes a factor of socialization based on reciprocity and not on affective dependence. It is no longer used to enforce the adaptation to standards which don’t take into account the indispensable exchange between individuals who learn to respect their difference for their own sake and for a more intense and richer life through daily practice. Failures are part of this process since mediating between individuals requires individual solutions which can’t be but symbolical to allow the evolution of opposite viewpoints into a creative synergy like between Otter and Keeper. Both are bound by their reciprocal desire to make the other one happy according to his abilities instead of personal expectations. Each cannot but be disappointed which would deprive them of what’s best in otherness: being surprised again and again by new aspects the differences never cease to reveal.

The author stresses this more humorously and explicitly in one of his internet stories where Keeper lets Otter draw what she is good at to cheer her up: “Climbing things I’m not supposed to – Fighting the hoover – Looking pretty for the otter keeper – Teaching people who know less than me – Hiding from the otter keeper – Looking after things – Sneaking up on my ball when it’s not looking – Sleeping” summing up the “Things (she’s) really good at”.  This odd list underlines his purpose; by doing it, she becomes aware of what she is really able to do and what matters to her so that she no longer feels attracted by achievements which don’t match her real interests. At the same times, her naïve drawings do Keeper much more good than by him trying to behave like a working adult.

She surprises him by revealing to him who she is: a young otter living at his home joining animalistic antics with the whimsical behavior of a young girl! Her unpredictable character can’t help but perk him up in comparison with his regular life, her activities appear humorously distracting because they are carefree like her drawings which she did only for her and Keeper’s pleasure. So, no matter how ridiculously awkward they might seem to anyone who isn’t involved in her life, they give Keeper an immeasurable value like any child’s drawing do for their parents. They are not artwork, as the implicit comparison with the illustrations suggest, they are most precious testimonies of her unconditional love which, remember, was important for her during her evolution. However, Keeper an evolved artist, realized that her strength was precisely her inner freedom which lets her express spontaneously what she feels simply because she needed to express it.  He rewarded her innocent generosity towards him by making her the heroine of the book which tells how they get along together in a reciprocal playful mode inciting them to do the best of themselves for their common pleasure. Thus, their unlikely couple opposes creative emulation to social competition and bets on love to change mentalities progressively because it lets everyone become aware of what is precious for another.

Continues soon....stay tuned!