Books: Adventures In Thurberland

THE WHITE DEER—James Thurber—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

It was spring-fever time in the enchanted forest—scene of James Thurber’s latest excursion into the world of fantasy. The rabbits tipped their heads, as men tip their hats, “removing them with their paws and putting them back again.” A pink comet flashed by, missing the world by inches. The air was full of the tinkling of musical mud, the roar of barking trees, the flight of wingless birds. In fact, everything was just as usual.

But old King Clode, who ran the place, had something on his mind and he wanted to hold a conference. He summoned the Royal Wizard, who appeared in a cloud of smoke. “Just come in the room like anybody else,” bawled the king indignantly, “Bad enough … to appear in a flash of lightning . . . smells up the whole castle.” “Yes, Sire,” said the Wizard.

King Clode summoned the Royal Physician. But the Royal Physician was ill: he was busy taking his own temperature and then shaking down the thermometer without looking at it. “As a physician,” he explained to the King, “I must take my temperature every three hours, but as a patient, I must not be told what it is.”

King Clode summoned the Royal Astronomer (who studied the solar system through pink lenses), the Royal Clockmaker (who kept his sundials in the shade and whose clocks wouldn’t strike twelve), and the Royal Recorder (who never let courtiers borrow the History of Sorcery from the Royal Library without first filling out a slip).

But none of them could tell King Clode what to do about the white deer he had trapped in the forest, and which had suddenly changed into a beautiful princess. And when they saw the way the princess nibbled lettuce, they could not promise the King that she wouldn’t change back any minute.

“Take an Edict.” King Clode summoned the Royal Recorder. His Majesty dictated: “Write it plain and write it clear: No son of mine shall wed a deer.” But the smart princess had already given King Clode’s sons, Princes Thag, Callow and Jorn, deeds of valor to perform in rivalry for her hand—or, it might be, hoof.

Prince Thag rode through the Valley of Euphoria, and birds sang “verti verti verti go.” In the Forest of Jeopardy, he slew the Blue Boar (it was sound asleep).

Prince Gallow rode through a magic wood hung with signs: “7 League Boots Now 6.98”; “Seek Grailo, Even Better Than the True Grail.” Defying the “roaring . . . Tarcomed [and] the surly Nacilbuper” (The White Deer’s proper nouns sometimes read best backwards). The Prince passed the Moaning Grove of Artanis and bested the famed Seven-headed Dragon. This wasn’t really such a bold feat, because the Dragon ran by clockwork, and the Prince bribed the mechanic not to wind him up.

Prince Jorn bravely attacked a terrible knight in black armor, who turned out to be an invalid gaffer, dressed up. Then he gathered the one thousand precious cherries he had picked from the orchard of the fearful Mok-Mok, who was stuffed, and had birds’ nests in his eyes.

Readers will find out for themselves which of the three gallant princes won the beautiful princess and broke the spell that would have reduced her to venison. Thurber fans will also find the master at his deftest, most whimsical and funniest. His fantasy for moderns manages to be both a parody of the oldtime fairy tale and a sly pummeling of modern legalistic, scientific and political bogeymen. Author Thurber serves it all up, with a bag of tricks which include whole pages of painstaking “prose” that is really either rhymed or blank verse, and a swatch of his own uninhibited drawings that would frighten a witch off her broomstick.