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!