The Complexities of Babar

Adam Gopnik examines the different interpretations of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books - an implicit endorsement of French colonialism or a "fable of the difficulties of a bourgeois life" as Gopnik concludes?

While I don't accept the fable argument I think it is a real step forward to see the social values embedded in literature debated in the pages of a mainstream publication like the New Yorker.

The New Yorker article:
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gopnik?currentPage=all

The Morgan Library & Museum currently host an online exhibition of original drafts and Watercolours for the first Babar book:

www.themorgan.org/collections/swf/exhibOnline.asp?id=900