Nature versus Society - a symbolic challenge

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

Exploring Love & Evolution in I am Otter

Playing and reading are – if used to cultivate and brighten life – representative of actual social existence because they restore the nexus between love and imagination which serves a double aim - it prepares to fit real living conditions, yet relates their absolute power on each individual who is still able to negotiate the adaptation because he received enough self-consciousness to not accept them passively and retract into anger and frustration. It gives the intimate strength based on personal conviction to express social criticism on the behalf of humanity and their preservation for the unequaled degree of development they represent and not for partial political reasons which only advocate material adjustments and thus, aggravate conflicts and jealousy as they are only oriented towards an immediate and collective satisfaction. They will only increase the demand for more since they can’t compensate the individual need for recognition of personal qualities which makes everyone unique. Sam Garton’s perspective underlines the necessity to separate at last the amalgam between materialism and well-being which had been made in the 19th century to find back to a more philosophical and universal conception of mankind which encourages critical sense and freedom: both indeed are at the service of reciprocal understanding since they are based on self-preservation which paradoxically implies the respect of the other in the interest of the species’ own survival which is essential for the diversity of life. As a mental prevention from the enrollment in collective movements, self-consciousness helps therefore preserve the other’s freedom as it is indispensable for a society to evolve with the consent of those who make it a structure which everyone feels good to live in. It let's us find symbolic compromises supporting the change of mentalities instead of revolutions which are the result of authoritarian socializations where the efficiency of life has already been alienated by an education which didn’t respect personal freedom and autonomy because they try to create an actor of everyone - responsible for his own life.

That’s why Otter’s great educational challenge is to admit Keeper’s independence when he gets to work since she can’t guess that what she perceives as his personal will corresponds in fact for him to a social necessity which he must accept to be free to live with her at home. She must acknowledge that she isn’t able yet to figure out what his life without her looks like and that there is an age for everything so that she can’t skip a stage in her evolution whilst Keeper is able to look back and to sympathize with her in order to help her integrate constructively her own childhood experiences in an attractive vision of being adult which let her grow up happily. Hiding her a part of his own reality is part of his wisdom since knowing too much about it would hinder her evolution: it would confront her with problems she wouldn’t be able to understand and generate useless anxiety of getting autonomous. What he doesn’t deny however, is that, unlike her, this awareness enables him to join her games doing as if he would share spontaneously her innocent pleasure while relating her own excitement since she hasn’t experienced anything else yet and is curious of anything new. This strikes his empathetic discernment because he shares her emotions appreciating what they mean to her as he revives his own more consciously through hers. He treasures these moments which offer him the opportunity to live a symbolic pleasure from childhood and enjoy as a gift the total gratuity of her unconditional love towards him which he must thwart nevertheless for her own sake to get autonomous as he also knows it is the best he can do for her.

Sam Garton’s merit is to stress, through the dialogue his drawings initiate with his public, that Keeper’s attitude represents an evolution signifying a refinement of love from one generation to another and the best example for it remains the concert for which Otter extends an invitation. While the text reports her own impressions: “Now I love Otter Keeper and Teddy very much. We have much fun together, you wouldn’t believe it! Especially on the weekends”, the drawing commenting upon this last sentence features an Otter Keeper who had surrendered to an over-excited Otter who had organized a show for him with Teddy and who was eventually singing for him after having played all kinds of instruments which were already lying under the table.

Children who become able to compare both point of views and evaluate Otter’s limited consciousness guess that there is an age for everything and that, when grown-ups participate in their games, which they know are the real existence for them, they do it because of an empathetic memory based on their own experience and maybe even rather more on what they have missed during their own childhood: the interest and the recognition of their own parents which wasn’t evident a few generations before when adults – especially men - didn’t enter their children’s imaginary world because it was unusual and psychological knowledge wasn’t grown so far to consider it important for their later development. Yet, this doesn’t mean that they now enjoy it at the same primary level as they do because they have different priorities in their lives: they accept to postpone them for a while even if they might look a bit ridiculous and displaced, like poor Keeper in this sequence, because they love them and know that they need their support for whatever creative they do, so far it expresses their faith in life, to get more self-confident until they become autonomous and can do without their actual presence.

Sam Garton points to children that adults make an effort of real understanding when they play with them and he highlights that they aren’t childish however they might look so. On the contrary, he underlines that they are aware of what it consciously means to play since they plainly guess that it is an essential need for the transmission of a survival instinct they have already experienced and refined to a kind of wisdom which helps them evaluate a situation from different perspectives and accommodate their own action with a life-serving dynamism. This way, thanks to the mediation of the author, Keeper appears even to the young readers an unquestionable authority who educates them as well as Otter – the only difference between them and Otter is that they understand a bit more what he is doing. Yet, as they observed that he accepted to enter her game, even if he looked risible, just not to spoil her pleasure, they have no reason to feel superior to her or maybe even to mock her as they realised that behaving like that would let them fell off the circle of love which protects all those who participate in in her life and automatically exclude them from the story itself.

He sets an example which lets them understand that nobody acting because of uninterested love should be considered ridiculous, as he intends to do the best for the other, which doesn’t mean to be uncritical towards him. So, Otters’ exaggerated mimic, when she is singing, as well as the obvious difference between an actual concert and the perception of it she reproduced with the modest means she has at her disposal can’t but conjure a smile at the readers’ face. Yet, at the same time, they will sympathize with Keeper who accepts to play his supportive role and credit her imaginary world so that she can feel as if it was real and plainly enjoy the success of her performance. The drawing indeed shows how entering someone’s perspective by imagination transforms a possible feeling of superiority, the readers – adults and children both - might feel incline to, into tenderness towards Otter and Keeper through a sort of associative chain reaction: it creates sympathy for Keeper’s thoughtfulness who knows that he would hurt and discourage her if he judged her from his adult point of view and according to the completely unrealistic scale of objective reality which would be even more ridiculous given the fact Otter guesses that her performance is something very special only for Keeper. This can’t but touch the readers who must sympathize with both the protagonists since they realize that they are only motivated by love and gratefulness to have each other.

Reciprocal love reveals indeed the source of vital energy which allows evolution as it doesn’t discredit any attempt to refine its process. That’s why it is only based on self-irony as a way to learn from the other’s experience without any prejudice and without any fear of losing his self-esteem: if someone finds you ridiculous whilst trying to make the best of your life by exploring different possibilities, he himself hasn’t guessed yet what matters for him because he is still unconscious of his abilities he hasn’t learnt to use in his own interest and reveals therefore more immature than you.
This way, the author teaches both categories of his readers a lesson without any pedantry as he does it implicitly by inciting them to improve their observation and associate their impressions to relate them to each other and get the most nuanced appreciation of the situation as a whole to include it at its best in their own perception of life, which, at last, can’t be but an individual evolution to more self-consciousness and awareness of others. To the younger ones, he points that grown-ups are tolerant with them because they know they have to learn by experience and that the credit they give to their games develops their faculty to imagine oneself at the other’s place which is essential for their own survival as unconditional love might be touching, however it didn’t stand evolution, creating too much trouble due to its excessive expectations, like Otter’s example shows it. Yet, while he underlines her cuteness, he requests the adult’s attention for taking their children’s games seriously as they are decisive for their evolution and need their implication to be plainly efficient. He makes them get aware of their importance for the development of their intelligence as they valuate their instinct which attracts them unconsciously to others and prepares them to interact with them in a creative process to elaborate a symbolic balance between their individual interests.

That’s why he insists so much on the constructive role of love which transforms the readers’ consciousness of Otter’s awkwardness into deep sympathy for her cuteness as they realize that she can believe in herself despite being still like a child because Keeper supports her faith in life and in the improvement of her talents, when he plays with her. Although he is an adult, he enjoys to do so as he loves her and feels responsible for her future: for that reason, he strengthens her perseverance and her independence towards inappropriate judgments which could harm her whilst he lets her experience that clever adaptation to better understand others is an advantage for self-preservation and tolerance as well. He lets her find out on her own that she can’t participate in his world because she isn’t ready for it yet and not because he wanted to deprive her of an experience she should be jealous of. This way, he gives her a life lesson as well as the readers so far they will feel like reacting at what she does. He never judges the failure of her toast business, the mess of it she has just to clean up with him, because he doesn’t turn his superiority against her at any time and thus, behaves like an adult should towards a child or like older children should towards younger: he tries to let her realize that what helps conciliate different experiences and the different perspectives which result of them is thoughtfulness as it solicits reciprocal adaption at an individual level to preserve everyone’s self-esteem and freedom whilst fortifying the symbolic authority of the fittest. His behavior, which appears always well adapted whilst preserving Otter’s space at his home, underlines that love is not an easy going feeling, it is a permanent challenge for everyone’s autonomy which must be accepted to become able to do the best of one’s life. So, the readers of the book can’t but be in the disposition to learn from their relationship since, although Otter’s mischievous innocence puts a smile on every face, she must as well as Keeper been taken seriously because she believes in herself and in the world she lives in thanks to his understanding love which will let her evolve mentally according to her growth without being bothered by his expectations.

To be continued....

Reading I am Otter is founded on trust in imagination

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

Becoming a reader of I am Otter is an anti-conformist choice which is founded on the trust in imagination and pleasure as the fundamentals of life. The book expresses some hope in the resources of human nature. 

Otter becomes such a strong symbolic power - she represents, through the reference to the actual existing animal, the survival of uninterested playfulness and is guided by them and this faculty appears still existing in literature and especially in children’s literature which doesn’t pretend to prepare to definite social skills. I am Otter does exactly the contrary as it strengthens the affective links between those who have kept this sensibility and want it to prosper in their children’s mind to maybe create a more human society or, at least, let them feel less isolated like Keeper.  

Therefore, Sam Garton’s dedication of his book “to all who love Otter” is far more than just a set phrase; it’s a real declaration to his own character and to his audience which expresses a deep change in the relationship he intends to have with them.  Addressing his readers directly, he confesses the love he feels for his own creature while acknowledging her individuality, transgressing on purpose a literary convention by unveiling his emotional implication in her evolution. He appears protective to a point where he would like to prevent her from the encounter with people who might hurt her and trouble the interactive space he created with his book as an alternative place where he tries to restore education as a loving emulation based on plain reciprocal acceptance. It can’t work from the moment his readers don’t recognize her as personality they have to deal with and to adapt their own behavior to because, if not, their criticisms would break the dynamism of her innocent development and mislead it towards forced adaptation and hypocrisy, which could destroy her precious personality.

His love is mere thoughtfulness based on the consciousness of her unique sensibility - he wants her to avoid the experience of being harmed by those who don’t understand her and who might censor her playfulness because they have already lost their sense for nature and are so irreversibly alienated and cut off from their origins, that they will not be able to change. Yet, at the same time his dedication hints mischievously to his character’s charm he is confident in because she represents his trust in mankind and in the power of life which just needs to be stimulated by imagination. He bets on the survival instinct in any individual; he is almost sure that one can’t help but love Otter. His own example proves it - his declaration is significant for the change he initiated in himself with her creation and which makes her so precious to him. She symbolizes for him the self-healing power of imagination which generates serenity and self-love because it helps build relationships on reciprocal attraction which preserves the integrity of each one’s personality as it exists.  Garton underlines that being a book author means creating an evolving structure, allowing everyone to feel included from the moment he creates his own affinity with the characters and reacts to them instinctively.

This is indispensable indeed as life develops - fluctuating between imagination and reality in any creative process which figures symbolically how evolution works to find out the best adaptation implying failures as constructive attempts to changes. Those might not succeed in generating real transformations at the moment, they will however give the opportunity to learn about oneself in contact with others. Whatever might be the actual ending, this experience represents a personal enrichment as it gives the opportunity to better guess what is good for oneself. Thus, reading prepares for life as it helps evolve and become oneself while feeling related to others who are attracted by the same curiosity.

I am Otter has been conceived from the beginning as a bifocal book based on the tension between fiction and reality as it appears in Otter’s own reflection through her relationship with Keeper because she invents the part of his life she ignores according to her highly emotional imagination. She emphasizes Keeper’s otherness to a caricatured paramount which leads her to excessive games. Through them she learns to equalize their relationship by striking a balance between her irrational excitement and the usefulness of his sovereignty and independence. So, they appear to play a decisive role for the acquisition of her own autonomy as they allow her to guess that life develops by reciprocal stimulation on the basis of empathetic intuition and critical reflection by using attraction and distance as the possibility to get a new appreciation of oneself through the imaginary exchange of personal experiences. Thus, the readers’ implication in Otter’s evolution let them get further in the mental process of becoming adult which relates the consciousness of being loved with the recognition of otherness thanks to the faculty to represent fusional emotions by symbolic associations of images preserving the mystery of privacy whilst encouraging the intuitive power of imagination to create innovative connections.

I am Otter doesn’t only practically prepare to read, it shows that reading is an interpersonal dialogue which supports adaption and growth by developing everyone’s curiosity and tolerance through the confidence in the possibility to communicate beyond differences within everyone. It establishes the link between playing and reading as both favor the aptitudes enabling children to participate in life progressively while they grow.  So, I am Otter demonstrates that children’s books are essential for socialization and cultural transmission which begins much earlier than expected by the training of the mental structures which enable them to interpret and use symbols to develop their faculty to communicate with others by diversifying their skills. It makes obvious that reading must be initiated and books introduced as soon as possible in a child’s life so that they grow up with them as if they were toys like Otter does at Keeper’s home.

Reading (I am Otter) generates tolerance & love as alternatives to social competition

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

I am Otter introduces children to reading as a process allowing them to understand what happens around them by interpreting actions and reactions through a dialogue with adults who, at their own turn, re-appropriate these abilities which enables them to adapt individually and create personal bonds on the basis of reciprocal recognition. Otter is actually and symbolically the facilitator of this process which occurs in the reintroduction of interpersonal relationships since they have become almost extinct in a society which treats them as a cause for disturbance. She makes clear that trouble is the expression of vitality since life only develops by the concrete experience of otherness as an interactive transformation. Otter’s arguments with Keeper become more significant too since they introduce children into the adult world not as the necessity to conform, but as the experience of the natural existence in life. She incarnates a challenge not only for Keeper but for all the readers who face the questions she raises and who, by interpreting her behavior, become mediators between them while commenting on the story.  Otter’s education appears a common concern which unites actively the readers to the characters they enrich with their own reflection and experience.  The plot in I am Otter evolves from the pictured depiction of the interrelationship between Otter and Keeper; giving the readers insight about how they live stretching to a symbolic level letting everyone the freedom - and the responsibility - of one’s own interpretation. This changes according to the different stages of self-awareness, letting the children integrate the subtleties of the book as they grow, while it remains easy and playful so that they will not become discouraged. Thus it stimulates curiosity – another natural quality of otters – letting children become eager to read in order to grasp a deeper understanding of the characters and their actions so that they are in a better position to defend their point of view.

So, one could say that Otter is a very complex transitional character as she will enable adults to free emotions they have denied and unconsciously associated with childhood. She involves them in an educational project which aims to restore symbolic thinking by the development of creative imagination.  The adult readers’ participation in her story reconnects them with themselves which enables them to communicate with children while taking into account their different needs as a natural challenge to their own empathy and invention, helping them evolve according to their own stage of consciousness. Otter’s troublesome being reveals to them the paradox of evolution which requires the awareness and acknowledgement of otherness in order to improve oneself and generate love and gratitude between individuals. They realize that tensions and conflicts are part of mental growth which requires the setting of limits and acceptance of those limits.

Hence, I am Otter is not a one-sided moral enterprise which aims to teach adequate behavior according to what was admittedly right or wrong in an existing society; it is humorous and playful fiction which trains mentally how to adapt for a common good.  Interacting with adults, on the basis of the book, children will become more conscious of their own needs and those which are important for their socialization so that they can better decide on what matters for themselves. So, like their heroine, they are led to understand that limits are indispensable for their protection and that the adults’ authority is justified to prevent them from experiences they wouldn’t be able to cope with alone. The adults let children become conscious that autonomy doesn’t mean only to be able to do without them; it also means to know when they need them. This way, children learn confidence in their own abilities which enables them to make their own decision according to what they believe is right for them. The readers of I am Otter won’t ever become bored of Otter’s adventures as they evolve with her enjoying learning about themselves while having fun with her.

Thus, Sam Garton reintroduces sociability as an essential quality which makes the success of humanity - understanding that playing is a way to develop personal sensibility linking emotions and the intelligence to express them in a symbolic form. Otter lets adults feel what they owe to life as she reminds them that what they appreciated in childhood is the freedom games and tricks seemed to represent and which they rediscover through a fiction showing them that most have been reinvented in their memories for their own fun and distraction from what they miss so much since they have grown up. So, the encounter of Otter and Keeper illustrates that what makes life rich is the continuous exchange between imagination and the experience of its limits, which is natural to children.  While adults, on the other hand, acknowledge that literature – especially children’s literature – gives them the opportunity to live out their fantasies & imagination that they associate with a childhood which may never have existed yet still inspires them by stimulating their curiosity for a challenging, even provocative otherness.

This sheds light on Otter’s fascinating ambiguity which captivates both adults and children as she represents what was taboo in childhood and had therefore become a phantasm for grown-ups they will reproduce in their education if they don’t find a way to express it symbolically so that it can be discussed and assimilated in the reciprocal understanding of its constructive use. She takes advantage of her fictional personality to bring about the freedom of imagination as she is completely innocent and wild and doesn’t live but for herself. The sympathy she will get is then only for what she is; no expectations are attached as Keeper’s own behavior gives her no directives - just toys - and lets her be completely free. This creates a situation where she isn’t judged while adult readers are discharged of feeling responsible for what Keeper does, as Otter is “only” a fictional character in a book. Otter doesn’t evoke any existing real model so that she can’t be misused as a reference - by children or by grown-ups - who feel discharged of any responsibility for the rules she breaks since she is under the care of Keeper.  Entering her world means recognizing the fiction where she lives in as a symbolic place where taboos can be represented at an imaginary level because anyone needs to vent frustrations and aggressions which work against socialization. Otter’s cuteness and smartness express transgression in a rather harmless form and reveal its normality, showing that imagination can’t be controlled and therefore must find its proper medium and its proper style to be realized consciously connecting the Self to a symbolic otherness and includes its phantasm in a dialog so that it becomes understandable and solicits reactions. Thus, Sam Garton demonstrates that his book is opposite traditional education which aims at the inhibition of unsocial feelings to that of a moral.  Garton underlines that aggressions must be exhibited in order to not become destructive for oneself and others in real life; yet the negativity of the aggression becomes obvious without being judged because they belong to Otter’s unconscious animalism.  

Otter is an independent character living in her own world. This gives her enough consistency to be taken seriously by children who guess that they are like her in a phase of evolution where their situation relates to growing up.  Their identification with her let them evolve towards their own independence while having communication with adults helping to evaluate their actions according to their chances of success and not according to moral issues. Otter supports them in developing their adaptability as she invites them to participate in her games at their own stage of consciousness since playfulness has revealed the most efficient social link between different individuals who must adjust their expectations.

Thus, Otter liberates parents, not only from their own moral inhibitions, but she illustrates that any projection on social achievement of their children is unfair.  So, Otter invites both children and adults to evolve by renouncing their inadequate representation of the other’s stage of evolution to play freely. She offers them an uninterested ‘bystander’ which is only motivated by the pleasure to enjoy childhood by stimulating the power of imagination to learn how to better know each other without any ulterior motive, just to satisfy an innate interest in otherness at the service of personal enrichment since learning about others makes one happy and increases the curiosity for anything that lives and grows.  Thus, adaption becomes a game which doesn’t anticipate the children’s own experiences, yet lets them guess that they are related to their predecessors who went through the same process while growing up. The book opens a fictional space where the exchanges between generations reveal the continuity of life while preparing future changes at the brink of consciousness; it appears a quasi-magic structure where past and future not only interfere, yet elaborate how they will link virtually to transmit the indispensable knowledge for individual and collective survival. It supports a mental process which allows fantasy, setting it free from social conditioning to work out more dynamic forms of living together at an experimental level which playfulness is the most important aptitude as it generates temporary and adaptable rules which never exclude alternatives to integrate new unpredictable developments. In fact, it requires an open-mind which contributes to enlarge by increasing its public which will evolve individually thanks to their encounter with Otter who will let them surmount social conformism to find out what really matters to them in their own life.      

I am Otter interferes with reality, yet it doesn’t pretend to shape it as it works only at an individual level which supposes an autonomous adhesion to its purpose based on the principle of pleasure to counterbalance the unequal repartition between imagination and realism in the existing socialization which accentuates separations and leads to inappropriate fantasies alimenting an increasing discomfort in the actual existence which children’s education is revelatory for. Restoring the importance of playfulness from an evolutionary perspective, Sam Garton positions himself far from an educational purpose which aims to transmit advice for living since only life can provide it by experience. Through the experience of childhood, the revival of playfulness allows an individual criticism of society which solicits personal responsibility and action as a provocative opposition to conformism which however will only be understood by those who are mature enough because they are conscious that individual manifestations of autonomy create more empathy and insight through connection than social ones. Readers see themselves in Keeper who has been transformed by his encounter with Otter who awakened Keeper’s creativity and gave him the courage to show symbolically his uniqueness within the limits of existing society.

To be continued....stay tuned

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!

Exploring imagination and socialization within "I am Otter"

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

Moving from the exploration of Otter's imagination and growth, we begin to look at imagination and how that leads to socialization. 

By the way author Sam Garton adapts the tradition of myths and tales which were integrating children into the adult community, he brings about the key-role of imagination for socialization. He shows that only imagination lets Otter realize her physical evolution and figure out the continuity of her being. This enables her to relate to others through empathy and compassion despite apparently objective differences.

Through the relationship between Otter and Keeper, Garton illustrates concretely how the experience of being linked with others helps build self-knowledge and identity as well as self-confidence because it contributes to broaden the vision and the appreciation regarding the frustrating awareness of our own subjectivity. He demonstrates that imagination, when it is nourished and supported by others, is the opportunity to invent oneself; he proves practically that imagination is a way to find friends as nobody should be alone. For that reason, Keeper has Otter as a fictitious, yet vital companion and Otter has Teddy, whom she gives some personality through her fantasy, and their interactions create a multi-layered fantastic reality which helps provide a different look at everyday life. The author stresses that we all need fiction existentially because building up an original identity supposes the ability to appropriate other’s experiences according to what appeals to us and allows us to integrate them to evoke new associations which give a surprising, if not improbable, humoristic sense.

Fictitious existence, as it is incarnated by Otter, represents the freedom to relate to others’ fantasy in order to realize the most of what you are and which will always be more than you can be physically. It opens an endless opportunity for experiences. That’s why, in his book, Sam Garton stimulates his readers’ imagination, inviting them to interpret the story as they wish, incorporating their own truth.
The power of imagination reveals the link between all living beings who have realized that playfulness makes no sense if it remains only self-related, as it is destined to awake a communicative joy which is based on the intuitive belief in an understanding of otherness. It is the empirical proof that individual life cannot exist and persist without a symbolical link with others which will help structure its future evolution. Thus, it is the motor of creativity which lets the mind create alternatives and ways to experience them. So, it causes a feeling of tolerance which lets in an awareness of nature’s necessity to diversify for the continual development of life. Playing helps imagine changes without denying reality, it relativizes it as a transitional stage which can be modified by invention to better fit one’s personal development.

Sam Garton demonstrates that being creative is an innate faculty which needs to be trained from the very beginning of individual consciousness because it enables one to conceive otherness and cope with the difference, no matter how surprising it might be.  Otter’s arrival at Keeper’s home answers their reciprocal longing for an achievement which will make them both feel happier and more accomplished. Thus, their meeting unveils symbolically the challenge of creativity for the author himself, when Otter ‒ the creature he has imagined ‒ becomes an autonomous character who will play a role in a scenario which will feature from the beginning how she develops, confronted with Keeper, his own fictive alter ego. So, the realization of the book which actualizes his own imagination transforms him as it gets its own dynamic despite being a fiction. He has indeed to acknowledge that, as the protagonist of text he wrote for children, she however doesn’t respond to his desire to find a way back to an idealised childhood he misses. Otter’s troublesome personality lets him guess that his creative impulse had been motivated by regressive nostalgias which couldn’t fit her from the moment she became independent and began to challenge Keeper. So, the fiction itself forced the author to modify the relationship between his characters to save their credibility, showing that imagination can only exist in correlation with adaptation to differences which always always happens in any kind of being.

Considering Otter’s autonomous and already unshaped being from the empathetic point of view of the socialized adult, places Keeper automatically in the position of an educator who realizes how subjective his vision of childhood was compared to that which he actually lives with. Instead of passively identifying with the fictitious creature the author has created, he faces a living character that reminds him of the anxieties and the troubles he had forgotten, surmounting them while growing up. In the story, Keeper must find real solutions as an adult who must cope with problems generated by Otter’s hyperactive, infantile imagination which challenges his own imagination as it must react adequately, relating his experience with an unconscious past in order to help Otter evolve. This leads him to the realization that he can get back to childhood only symbolically through an activity which stabilizes her fantasy without hindering its evolution. Staying in a playful dialogue with her thanks to her own drawings gives him an insight into what she feels and with the illustrations which show her behaviour, he orients her towards a more realistic appreciation of herself. Sam Garton emphasizes here that growth is a never ending process of reciprocal symbolic exchanges where imagination plays a decisive role as long as it helps surmount differences by empathy. It is not a linear progress, it is the actualization of an emotional interaction which Garton features in I am Otter where he replaces the unilateral concept of teaching by that of adaptation which supposes reciprocity, yet not equality since it relies on experience which helps strike the balance between imagination and its best application at the moment.

Thus, beyond the story he tells his young public - through the unlikely relationship between Otter and Keeper - the author additionally features how he transformed himself while inventing her. Like in the book, she let Garton transform his interests from the narrowness of a “nine-to-five job” to his own personal artistic achievement despite the sleepless nights this meant for him. This personal implication - makes Otter lively and appealing as if she were real - gives her a credibility even for adults. She unconsciously interjects them into her fictive environment, bringing them into her playful adventures.  She lets them follow their creative experience in their own way; reactivating their imagination, which had been forced out by everyday life. Otter’s inventive vitality pesters adult readers to let go as doing so would make them feel much happier. From this, Garton adds a new dimension to his story which creates a beautiful metaphor for the profound mental transformation the birth of a child generates. He represents it as a universal experience which makes the mystery of life symbolically understandable to anyone who is able to develop an empathetic imagination, and therefore, to find its own original expression which provides the infinite imagery of collective Unconscious and its feminine grounding. The author’s great talent reveals in his specific understanding of the well-known female characteristics of fantasy since he goes beyond the idea that artists can feel what it means to give birth through their creations. He stresses that this consciousness is accessible to anyone who is curious enough to explore life and to link its experience with the reactions it provokes in his imagination which reaches deeper into pre-existing affinities. Thus, contrary to some contemporary children’s books, I am Otter doesn’t take part in the debate about the social definition of gender; it demonstrates the power of fantasy which is able to create mental correspondences that are strong enough to transform the conception of life by its own inner means. Undertaking to change men’s psychology by letting them experience that they can give their proper expression to the feminine determination which is at the unconscious beginning of their lives signifies however working according to the sense of evolution to restore its creative dynamism independently from any social improvement. This is a necessity for the human species, which needs to readjust the balance between imagination and the way to live it out through appropriate symbols at any stage of consciousness.  

That’s why Sam Garton’s empathy with his public consisting of children and adults reflects in his dual language the interactions between text and images through which he expresses discretely the transgression of gender as the proper characteristic of fantasy which at this moment of children’s development has no erotic connotation: the written discourse which is associated with masculine symbolic order is reporting Otter’s subjective opinion whilst the illustrations, which are related with the rather feminine power of imagination, help getting a more objective insight of what was actually going on. Their reciprocal humorous interferences regenerate the primitive pleasure of playing as the possibility to enjoy life through seemingly endless transformations. Hence, the author represents fantasy as the vital need to animate what you feel attracted to in order to get into a dialogue with it which will unveil the energy of an unknown part of yourself. He features it as a form of constructive love which enables one to guess affinities while enlarging one’s own emotional experience where the adult he had become reconnects with the representation of his childhood and recognizes that his life is a permanent dialogue with an idealized feeling of difference. This way, Garton underlines that childhood is far from being the idyllic era of mere innocence; it is remembered in sentimental memories. Thus, finding one’s way back to childhood is the contrary of encouraging nostalgia; it is the pleasure to create a fictional world inside reality as its critical humorous replica to question its conventionally admitted superiority. Playfulness becomes a most innocent argument to favor what is good for his evolution, which will eventually change social relationships. It does indeed suggest to question the prevalence of so called realism just because we are used to it and show that it leads to ridiculous distortions generally attributed to fantasy.

To be continued next week....

Exploring Otter's imagination & growth

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

Reminder: part II explored the idea of exploring the unconscious through playing and drawing.

The imagination and personal growth of Otter

Moving along into Otter’s imagination and personal growth, the reader discovers - through several illustrations in the book – Otter relies on what had been told to her about herself before she was able to refer to some personal memories. Thus, the major twist, marks the point where her imagination meets what Keeper told her about how she was with the beginning of her consciousness of her own life; she struggles with this concept. She has to make a deduction about the stage she has reached so far and this speculation leaves her feeling alienated and insecure about who she really is.  She can only move forward thanks to the mischievousness of her playful being and the pleasure she has to transform herself. This pleases the child reader while it lightens the adults’ mood. Both are invited not to brood on what they don’t understand, but to simply seize the moment.

That’s why Otter evokes through Keeper’s words that she indeed grew up and he refers to her as she no longer is and like she never knew she was. For Otter, she reflects on Keeper talking about her when she was younger stating “He says back then I was very small. I’m still quite small, so I must have been really tiny. I wish I’d made the most of being that little."  But, Otter still defines only through Keeper, as she views him as the superior authority since he is the only person with whom she has contact.  So, Keeper remains in her mind a sort of mythical god because he knew her from a time she can’t remember. And, because he told her about her past, he has created more of a bond with her while also helping her understand her past self. Thus, he puts her in a situation where she is able to appreciate her own growth as it relates to her past – she is able grow and accept her own  normal evolution because she is able to integrate the experience of having once been different into her self-construction.

Keeper only stimulated her imagination when he told her she was very tiny - he linked her emotionally to her body and its sensations - its affectations so that she could figure out by herself what she looked like through how she is at the moment. So, the drawings do more than illustrate the text, they literally bring to life how Otter experiences her feelings as intimate sensations. The illustrations show the tremendous power of her imagination helping her approximate the transformation of her body as she begins to determine what she could have done when she was tinier. She discovers and enjoys the abilities of her very adaptable body which she is able to scale in comparison to the different household items surrounding her.

Sam Garton’s brilliant artistic talent is revealed in his ability to invoke realistic pictures by simply changing perspectives as his heroine does by growing and expressing how naturally funny it is to switch into another one’s skin and experience their life from their perspective. Garton demonstrates that trusting fancy is pleasant and liberating because it enables one to find expressions for that what exceeds reality yet still corresponds to a reality provided the readers allow it. Thanks to his heroine and the identification she generates, he can combine these two perspectives and emphasize the benefit of imagination.

When Garton draws Otter, first hidden under an oversized pirate hat and then curled up in a tea cup peeking over its brim with a telescope, drawn with a skull emblem as if it was a pirate device. Humorously, Otter had even attached a piece of paper, deeming herself “Otter Pirate”. Garton allows his readers an insight in how imagination works: it crystallizes past and present. The pirate hat, in which Otter found by chance, was the beginning of an invented improbable story where she plays the role of a character she can’t realistically be since she guesses that the hat is far too big for her. Nevertheless, she explores the idea symbolically; imagining how she would have been as a pirate which enables enables her to transform her environment - conceived by and for adults - into her own playground. Spontaneously, her fantasy lets her see common practical items not as if they were there for another purpose, but only as they will play into her imaginary plan.

Simultaneously, Garton shows that the way Otter uses the accessories in her environment is not actually the result of her own invention as it is unlikely that she would realize that the piece of paper would make a mat. Garton stresses that Keeper collaborated and Otter helped since imagination takes shape only through interactivity and connectivity between the intimate personal bond of past and future.  Originality can only be expressed metaphorically within an image that assimilates otherness and alteration in the construction of the self and its conscious development through time and space. Otter needs Keeper to grow into her personality; he gives her the opportunity to be creative while the illustrator [Garton] responds to her expectations, drawing what she would like to do if she could. He draws her a rather complex scene with the fancy pirate ship while at the same allowing the spelling mistakes to exist in the inscription of the sail because it’s how she would think it is correct. Sam Garton’s genius is that he creates an acceptance for this surrealism which sneaks into everyday-life via minute differences which only humor lets guess and appreciate.

The drawings within I am Otter, expressed in the most simple form, create an unconscious continuity to sustain the story and help children feel how liberating drawing can be in response to what is told about them and what they can’t totally understand yet. Identifying with Otter awakens their curiosity about their past and the mysterious circumstances of their birth which can only be satisfied by imagination. That is why Garton is able to emphasize the importance of the tales and myths he employs because they cast bridges to others throughout time and space. He advocates for the children’s book extending the oral tradition of using drawings as a most elementary mental support in the transmission of life’s essentials from generation to generation; symbolized by the relationship between Otter and Keeper.

Children’s literature has evolved into a more sophisticated artistic genre transposing the way to self-consciousness into an open exchange which lets the readers take part in the characters’ interaction. This participation opens their minds as it gives them the opportunity to compare with others and to utter their own feelings constructively in a discussion facilitated by the book. The adult, reading to a child, becomes the mediator who is there to moderate the child’s reactions. Similarly the artist and author, tells the story and hopes that he has awoken a love – within the readers – of reading and drawing; encouraging them that these are stimulating activities that make life happier and richer.

To be continued....