My Opinion About A.A.Milne’s A Word for Autumn
What can be more dreadful than autumn? Every year we say farewell to summer and always think of it as the end of the world, to tell the truth, me, too. Undoubtedly, there are people who are fascinated with autumn, they like it. Anyway, it’s a beautiful time of the year, very picturesque and bright, especially during September. Leaves are red, orange, yellow, golden brown and amber. The air is cool, crisp and the sky looks darker and more boundless in the evenings.
But…it’s autumn and nothing can be done till the next June. It’s like a damnation and a punishment for relaxed and carefree summer we’ve just spent. A. A. Milne shares the other point of view in his essay “A Word for Autumn”. The narrator is kind of a relativist here. He is like Zen-Buddhist, the good and the bad are making the one, main law of life for him, they are indivisible and everlasting. “I had been thinking of the winter as a horrid wet, dreary time fit only for professional football.
Now I can see other things-…” These other things are too the part of our mundane and routine life but they do decorate it and make cheerful: sitting near by fireplace, having long talks with your parents or beloved ones during long and cold autumn and winter evenings, reading books or just muse on some things: “Good work shall be done this winter. Life shall be lived well. ” But I want to think a little about summer. Why do we like it so much and cherish it’s every day? Why does it so much influence our mood?
Summer comes every year like an award for the long and cold winter that we’ve managed to withstand. It’s my way of seeing it, of course, you may not agree with me. We like the sun, it’s warm and bright rays that are meeting us every summer morning, we’re fond of sunsets that stay in our memory for long time. It’s great time of camping weekends, holidays on the sea-shore and long evening walks in the city parks. I like that trees and grass are so emerald green, I like azure blue sky and light clouds in it and the warm wind. These are things I like about summer.
I see that people on the streets are more open and smile when summer comes. I think it’s in the air, this feeling of happiness, of youth and joyful moments. Everything makes a mix of complete and sunny summer bliss and that’s how it goes from year to year. That’s why, may be, it so important to keep this feeling and thought inside, and bring it throughout autumn and winter. We still don’t have such a skill. To be honest, me not. I try to cultivate this habit in me but every time it’s in vain and A. A. Milne on the contrary succeeded in it and I’m a little envious about him in this way.
He is epicurean here, he takes the best of life while he can, he enjoys every moment of life. He sees it’s beauty in the fresh celery and “a wedge of cheese”, in vegetables and fruits, in the pipe he just smoked, in taverns and London inns. And here comes the thought that it’s a good life and it’s going to be this way no matter what happens. The narrator wanted to make us think about it and he did. He ensured me and here I agree with him that: “The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October-and, waiter, some more celery. ”
