The Iron Giant: A Story in Five Nights

Rating:
Summary: read the book; see the movie
Review: A metaphor can be a very dangerous tool to wield; quite often while you are trying to reference one particular aspect of a thing, myriad other associations and relations spring to peoples' minds and they may well be quite different from those correspondences you intended to summon. Such is definitely the case with The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes--once England's poet laureate, now best remembered, albeit unfairly, by angry feminists as the husband who drove Sylvia Plath to her grave. Hughes tells the amiable story of a huge metal robot who crashes to Earth and after putting himself back together begins to sate his enormous appetite for metal by devouring cars and tractors and the like. Infuriated local farmers trap him, despite the efforts of one friendly boy named Hogarth. But the Iron Giant turns out to be quite useful when an enormous space-bat-angel-dragon attacks Earth and demands a tribute of animate matter to consume. The Iron Giant agrees to battle the monster, vanquishes him and determines that the creature is actually peaceful but was attracted to Earth by man's violence. The space-bat-angel-dragon agrees to return to space, where his "music of the spheres" has such a calming effect that Earth becomes a peaceful place.

Now the intent of Hughes's original story, as well as that of the very good recent movie which is loosely based on it, is to show the futility of war, violence, etc. Hughes book was written at the height of the Cold War and the space-bat-angel-dragon can be understood to be the Left's idealized version of the Soviet Union--a threat only because of our own attitudes and actions. The Soviet Union having been disposed of in subsequent years, the movie makes a more generalized anti-gun, anti-military, pro-nonconformity statement. But the truly delicious irony in both cases is that the most obvious subtext of the story is at war with the intended central message. Because, at the end of the day, the Iron Giant is nothing less than Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative come to life and saving the world. The author's pacifist message and the filmmaker's antiestablishment message are overwhelmed by the powerful metaphorical symbol of a gigantic defensive weapon being the only thing standing between mankind and certain destruction. How delightful the irony that book and movie basically end up being pleas for the biggest boondoggle in the history of the military-industrial complex.

I liked both book and movie very much. The film in particular may be the best non-Disney animated feature film ever made. Obviously the symbolism of the Iron Giant has escaped the control of the storytellers; but the metaphorical ironies merely add an additional layer of enjoyment.

GRADE:

Book: B+

Film: A-

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book & Movie
Review: Although this isn't the place to have a complete discussion of the Hughes/Plath relationship I suggest that the previous reviewer do more reading. Hughes did not "drive two wives to suicide" although it is popular to vilify him. Plath had previous suicide attempts well before ever meeting Hughes although this is generally ignored by those who wish to turn her into a feminist icon and blame him for her death. I could go on, but this is not the place for it.

Rating:
Summary: See the Movie; Read the Book; The Two Are Very Different
Review: Director Brad Bird's take on Ted Hughes' memorable 1968 tale, The Iron Giant, differs substantially from the story. So much so, that the book and the film may not have the same audience. Then again, those taken with the movie will likely want to explore the brief (80 page) book. This recent paperback edition features a beautiful cover drawn from the Warner Bros. movie, although the story is Hughes' original. Priced far below the lavish library volumes, this edition may be the best of both worlds, providing a look at the film's inspiration for the Iron Giant's many curious fans.

Rating:
Summary: THE IRON MAN, NOT THE IRON GIANT
Review: Don't let the illustration on the cover (or the title) fool you. This is Hughes' The Iron Man story that was the basis for the animated film The Iron Giant. Don't buy this book for bedtime reading expecting a novelization of the movie. The stories are similar but Hogarth plays (in my opinion) a minor role here and the Giant battles a monster from the constellation of Orion instead of elements of our government. The b&w illustrations are a nice touch but I don't think they'd fly in a large story time environment. The book also lacks the elements of friendship, self sacrifice, and non violence that were touched on in the film. Having said all that, enjoy the book for what it is - a story in 5 nights.

Rating:
Summary: Very Different from the Movie
Review: I first saw "The Iron Giant" as a movie and it's a fantastic movie. When I saw a copy of the book for sale I quickly snatched it up, I thought I would read it with my daughter.

The thing that first surprised me about this book is that it is beautifully written. It's obvious from its prose that Ted Hughes is also a poet. The slightly sophisticated language might be too much for those under 7, but I found it refreshingly charming.

The second surprise was that this book had very little to do with the movie. There's an Iron Giant in the movie and book as well as a young boy...and that's about it. The theme's are the same (in that this world can be a world of peace instead of a world of violence and fear) but both approach this lesson from different directions.

In the book, the Iron Giant, tricked by the boy, falls into a trap set for him by fearful farmers. The farmers quickly dispose of the giant, but the giant returns and it's up to the boy again to figure out how best to deal with him. In the end the boy and giant become friends but there is a bigger threat on the horizon, a space dragon the size of Australia has come to earth and only the Iron Giant can save the planet.

There's a lot of deep information here for such a short children's book. The Iron Giant (like in the movie) represents misguided fear. The space dragon can mean a number of things, but I align it with this planets habit of aggression... an aggression that threatens to consume us all. This book was written 30 years ago, but it seems timelier now than it did in the 1970's.


Rating:
Summary: Ironic Iron
Review: Neither children nor adults need know the intricacies of Ted Hughes' life to appreciate this book. In fact, they might be better off not knowing. England's poet laureate drove two wives to suicide--Sylvia Plath and, six years later, Assia Welville, who also murdered her child.

Readers need know nothing about the Cold War, either, though Hughes clearly created this story as an allegory about the evil of war. He gave the characters very little development. Hogarth, the boy who centers the movie based very loosely on this book, functions as a sort of trigger. But there's not much explanation about why he acts, or why anyone acts, for that matter.

Nevertheless, the plot will draw even the most tortured second-grade reader into its tangle of fantasy, words and poetry. And once there, he will find it impossible to escape until the book is done. (My favorite part is the music of the spheres--the music that space made, a strange soft music, deep and weird, like millions of voices singing together.)

The Iron Giant came to the top of a cliff one night, no one knows how or from where he had come. The wind sang through his iron fingers, and his great iron head, shaped like a dustbin but big as a bedroom, slowly turned right, then slowly turned left. Down the cliff he fell, his iron legs, arms and ears breaking loose and falling off as he went. The pieces scattered, crashed, bumped, clanged down onto the rocky beach far below, where the sound of the sea chewed away at it, and the pieces of the Iron Giant lay scattered far and wide, silent and unmoving.

See what I mean? When the Giant was discovered after biting a tractor in two, the farmers whose equipment he had ruined dug a deep enormous hole, a stupendous hole on the side of which they put a rusty old truck to attract him. Hogarth lured the Giant there, and when he finally came to the trap, the farmers filled it in on top of him and let out a great cheer. Of course, the Giant escaped, and Hogarth (who felt guilty) found a home for him in the local scrap yard, where he could eat tractors to his heart's content.

Then arrived from Space a terribly black, terribly scaly, terribly knobbly, terribly horned, terribly hairy, terribly clawed, terribly fanged creature with vast indescribably terrible eyes, each one as big as Switzerland. It landed in Australia, where it covered the whole continent, and all the armies of the world decided to fight this space-bat-angle-dragon, who demanded live creatures as food. They declared war and lost. It was Hogarth's idea to call upon the Iron Giant for help.

I won't tell you how the story ended. But the important point, for grown-ups at least, is that in creating his 1968 Cold War space-bat-angle-dragon, the erstwhile pacifist poet Hughes also created a vision of evil incarnate--the kind of evil that wishes to engulf the entire world, that cannot be reasoned with, cannot be pacified and must be fought. Ironic, isn't it? Alyssa A. Lappen

Rating:
Summary: great bed-time story
Review: This is a great bed-time story. It is broken into 5 chapters and each chapter is short enought to read aloud in one night. The story keeps the interest of the child and is fun for the adult to read. It is two stories. The first part is the arrival, capture, and release of the Iron Giant. The second part is the Iron Giant takes on the alien. The book is good and has a pieceful message that children of all ages should enjoy.

This is the only time I will ever say this, listen up! The movie is far superior to the book. This, by no means, takes away from the book. In fact being far superior to the book means that the movie is quite extrordinary. Get both and enjoy both. Discuss them with your children.

Rating:
Summary: great bed-time story
Review: This is a great bed-time story. It is broken into 5 chapters and each chapter is short enought to read aloud in one night. The story keeps the interest of the child and is fun for the adult to read. It is two stories. The first part is the arrival, capture, and release of the Iron Giant. The second part is the Iron Giant takes on the alien. The book is good and has a pieceful message that children of all ages should enjoy.

This is the only time I will ever say this, listen up! The movie is far superior to the book. This, by no means, takes away from the book. In fact being far superior to the book means that the movie is quite extrordinary. Get both and enjoy both. Discuss them with your children.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, compassionate, peaceful
Review: This is such a delightful book filled with imagination and peaceful resolution to differences. Children are captured by the amazing character "Iron Giant" and us adults enjoy the simple way that life winds around in this story of two very alien creatures.