The book that became a road map for life
After a long car trip spent teasing my sisters when I was seven years old, my聽parents dragged me into a second鈥慼and bookshop, threw a tatty hardback at me, and cried 鈥渆nough! Just shut up and聽read鈥�. And my world changed.
Hugh Lofting wrote The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle in 1922. The story is narrated by nine鈥憏ear old Tommy Stubbins, who becomes the Doctor鈥檚 apprentice. From the back seat of a 1980s Toyota, I peered through Tommy鈥檚 eyes into a world that was as dazzling to me as Dorothy鈥檚 Technicolor Oz.
The world of Doctor Dolittle celebrates intellectual curiosity for its own sake 鈥� a world in which the Doctor chases a rare jabizri beetle through the jungle like an excited schoolboy, or furiously scribbles notes onto the lining of his hat while conversing with the Great Glass Sea Snail.
I learned that the world's horizons are limitless, and you can set your own rules for exploring them.
Dr James Fraser, illustrated by Harry Slaghekke.
When the Doctor decides to go on聽a聽voyage, he explains to Tommy that聽he selects his destinations through Blind Travel: he blindfolds himself, lets the atlas fall open, and drops a pencil. When Tommy dropped his pencil,聽it landed on Spidermonkey Island, a floating island off South America, and that is where Tommy and the Doctor went.
Imagine the fireworks those words ignited in my seven鈥憏ear鈥憃ld brain, as I learned that the world鈥檚 horizons are limitless, and you can set your own rules for exploring them.
Like Tommy Stubbins, I grew up wanting to experience the thrill of discovery. I had never heard of an 鈥搃st before, but the Doctor was a naturalist, a botanist, and a linguist, and I have no doubt that I was drawn towards becoming an archaeologist by following Doctor Dolittle鈥檚聽footsteps.
Dr James Fraser is Senior Curator at the Nicholson Museum.
