The Apple and the Arrow in Never too Late to Read Classics

Oct 19, 2017 Manybooks rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: childrens-literature, history, historical-fiction, book-reviews, folklore-swiss-austrian, rebellion

So yes, Mary and Conrad Buff's Newbery Honour winning The Apple and the Arrow (which features Swiss national hero Wilhelm Tell's famous apple/arrow incident and is told from the point of view of his older son, Walter, the person who had the apple shot from the top of his head) is definitely readable and teeming with much excitement and adventure (and of course also presents positive messages regarding fortitude, courage, fighting against tyranny, standing tall and brave against oppression). And So yes, Mary and Conrad Buff's Newbery Honour winning The Apple and the Arrow (which features Swiss national hero Wilhelm Tell's famous apple/arrow incident and is told from the point of view of his older son, Walter, the person who had the apple shot from the top of his head) is definitely readable and teeming with much excitement and adventure (and of course also presents positive messages regarding fortitude, courage, fighting against tyranny, standing tall and brave against oppression). And if I simply were to approach The Apple and the Arrow as a story in and of itself and uncritically, I could and would indeed consider it most enjoyable, evocative and for its publication date of 1951 both still relevant and not even all that horribly thematically dated (enjoying and appreciating in particular that while Wilhelm Tell is indeed considered heroically brave and patriotic, and with unrelenting courage fighting on behalf of Swiss independence, he is also not simply drawn as bravery personified, as heroic perfection, but is portrayed with flaws and peccadilloes, such as being in possession of a rather mercurial hot headedness and a tendency to basically and for him and his son Walter dangerously beak off rather quickly and without forethought so to speak).

However, and this is indeed a very very big however for me personally, I just have not found either the storytelling or even the general themes of The Apple and the Arrow all that particularly European, all that particularly Swiss in nature (except for perhaps Conrad Buff's accompanying illustrations), with the general plot line reading more like a North American (a United States of America) story of a single and courageous patriot fighting against oppressive tyranny (albeit of course painted with and in a thin and pale cracking veneer of Switzerland).

For according to my own understanding of the Wilhelm Tell legend (and how Wilhelm Tell is also portrayed in Friedrich Schiller's famous play on the latter, how he is featured in Schiller's brilliant 1804 drama Wilhelm Tell), Wilhelm Tell is actually and generally NOT as he is for the most part portrayed by the Buffs as right from the BEGINNING of The Apple and the Arrow being an active conspirator against Gessler and Habsburg authority (no, Tell has generally or at least more often than not been portrayed both historically, folklorically and in European literature as someone who is at first rather an aloof and coolheaded loner, who although sympathetic to the rebellion against Austria, against Habsburg, is more concerned with his personal freedom as a lone mountain huntsman and only decides to actively and wholly join in the rebellion against Austrian rule when Gessler basically and without pardon and mercy forces his hand with the apple/arrow incident).

And even the apple/arrow incident (the main turning point of the legend and folklore regarding Wilhelm Tell as a hero, as a Swiss patriot) has not really (at least according to my knowledge of the Tell legend) been portrayed all that much in legend and literature as the Buffs have depicted it in The Apple and the Arrow (for unlike in the latter novel, in both Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and in most of the folktales, the legends surrounding Wilhelm Tell as a hero of the Swiss confederacy, Tell does not in fact actively and verbosely refuse to kneel before Gessler's plumed hat, that his failure to bow before it in respect might in fact have even been, as Tell attempts to explain to Gessler in Schiller's play, an actual oversight on his part, an unintentional omission). Of course, in both Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and in Mary and Conrad Buff's The Apple and the Arrow the entire premise of forcing the Swiss to acknowledge Gessler's tyrannical authority by having them salute and bow before his hat is considered and presented as being totally and utterly anathema, and the end result is also and indeed similar, is in fact the same, with Tell not bowing in front of the hat and then being forced to shoot an apple from his son Walter's head, and then later assassinating Gessler in Küssnacht (and why Tell does not immediately shoot Gessler and actually engages in the now famous "apple-shot" I have also never really and fully understood).

But yes, how Wilhelm Tell is portrayed as a general literary character in The Apple and the Arrow, does indeed bother me more than a bit on a personal level, as his presentation as a rather raging and right from the start active conspirator against Gessler and Habsburg tyranny is so majorly different from the Wilhelm Tell of history and legend that I know and yes love (from both Swiss folklore to Friedrich Schiller's classic play), that I cannot really, that I have not really been able just to read and simply enjoy The Apple and the Arrow, and that the to me a bit erroneous depictions of especially Wilhelm Tell's character do leave more than a bit to be personally desired. And thus for me, only a two star rating for The Apple and the Arrow (and no, not a terrible novel, and yes, an adventuresome story with important messages against tyranny and happily, fortunately in favour of striving against political oppression, but too historically inaccurate and yes too inaccurate on a literature basis as well for me to recommend The Apple and the Arrow without some major reservations and caveats, especially to and for readers like myself who adore Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and consider his Wilhelm Tell as the bona fide, the true Wilhelm Tell of legend and perhaps of history). ...more

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