Pavlova or How to Smuggle a Donkey Halfway Around the World

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Pavlova or How to smuggle a donkey halfway around the world (in theoriginal English The White Umbrella , "The White Umbrella") is a children's and youth novel by the British art critic and columnist Brian Sewell (1931-2015). In it he describes how an Englishman travels with a donkey foal from Pakistan via Iran, Turkey and several European countries to his British homeland.

The novel was published in Great Britain in 2015, a German edition followed in 2017. Both editions were illustrated by the British illustrator Sally Ann Lasson. The book received positive reviews in both the UK and Germany. It remained the only fictional work by Sewell to die in the year of publication.

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Map of the intermediate stops of Mr B and Pavlova on the section between Peshawar and Istanbul

Mr B, a fifty-year-old Briton, is out with a television crew in Peshawar , Pakistan , to make a film about the country's prehistory. When he saw a heavily laden donkey foal on the side of the road while driving a car, he decided not to take the flight back to London the following day. Instead, he would like to walk to London with the young donkey, whom he names after the Russian ballet dancer Pavlova because of her long legs . With only the bare minimum of luggage, including a white umbrella from the London umbrella shop James Smith & Sons , the two set off. In Peshawar they meet an old pharmacist who takes care of Pavlova's wounds, gives Mr B some tips on how to keep a donkey and arranges a trip to Quetta for them. There they are taken by a heroin smuggler who wants to use them as a cover. They take him across the border to the Iranian city ​​of Zahedan . There they meet the young bookstore owner, Mirzah, who sells them a map of Iran and arranges accommodation and a bus to Kerman . From there Mr B and Pavlova get to Zarand , from where they drive to Isfahan in the animal car of a train . Here Mr B visits a public bathhouse and buys several carpets that he has sent to London.

The carpet dealer's son takes the two of them in his van to Tabriz in western Iran and provides a connection to Maku near the Turkish border. From there they set off in a dolmuş towards Doğubeyazıt . At the border, Mr B is arrested by Turkish guards and separated from Pavlova. After being held in a cell for four hours, he is taken to see the Deputy Governor of Ağrı Province . Here he learns the reason for his arrest. A member of the television team has informed the UK Foreign Office of his travel plans. The Ministry has again asked its diplomats along the route to keep an eye out for Mr B. A mistake was made in the transmission and translation of the request, so the arrest was a mistake and Mr B is allowed to go. Pavlova is returned to him at a hotel in Dogubeyazıt to which the dolmuş driver has brought them. With her he visits the Ishak Pasha Palace and Mount Ararat , where he tells her about Noah and the ark .

The British ambassador has Mr B and Pavlova picked up by the driver Osman. With him, the two drive across Turkey to Istanbul. On the way they visit the Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island in Lake Van , visit a folk dance festival in Diyarbakır , taste the famous Maraş Dondurması ice cream in Kahramanmaraş and watch a traditional oil wrestling match in a town within sight of the Sea of Marmara .

On arrival in Istanbul, Osman takes her to the British ambassador's summer home, where she receives the ambassador's wife in a friendly manner. The next morning Mr B can enjoy an English breakfast there , the ingredients of which have been supplied by Fortnum & Mason . With the help of her diplomatic passport, the ambassador succeeds in getting Mr B and Pavlova across the Greek border to Alexandroupoli . There she arranged a train ride for the Englishman and the donkey in the conductor's car to Thessaloniki . However, the conductor allows the two of them to ride up to the border to Macedonia, which they can cross undisturbed. At a campsite by Lake Dojran , they meet a German tourist who wants to buy Pavlova for his children. When Mr B does not respond, the tourist takes him and the donkey foal to European route 75 .

Here they are picked up by the British antiquarian Hector, who takes them with him in his old Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow . With overnight stays in a hotel in Serbia, a Croatian monastery and a hotel in Karlsruhe , they arrive in France. Here Mr B arouses the displeasure of French housewives when he feeds a cream tart to Pavlova in the parking lot of a supermarket . In order to bypass import and quarantine rules, Hector Pawlowa gives a sleeping pill just before they board the ferry to Dover in Calais . This makes it possible to smuggle the sleeping Pavlova past both the French and British customs officers.

More than 30 days after leaving Peshawar, Mr B and Pavlova arrived at his home in Wimbledon . Here they are already expected by Mrs B and the couple's three dogs, which Mr B has named after the painters Dora Carrington , Frida Kahlo and Käthe Kollwitz . From now on Pawlowa lives with Mr and Mrs B. Together with Hector and his Russian wife Olga, who have been friends of the family since the trip, they go on various trips, including to Scotland to see Hector's family.

30 years after their adventurous journey, Mr B dies, three weeks later also Pavlova, who is buried next to his ashes in the garden. The book ends with Mrs B opening her husband's travel diary and starting to write down the book Pavlova or How to Smuggle a Donkey Halfway Around the World .

Creation and publication

Brian Sewell wrote Pavlova or How to smuggle an ass halfway around the world while he is due to a cancer of a radiation therapy had to undergo. The aim of the book was for him to arouse curiosity in young people because he found them extremely uninterested in the world around them. The book was inspired by a real experience of Sewell. Twenty years earlier in Peshawar he had actually met a young donkey that was much too heavily laden, but had not helped it. He expressed his remorse in a dedication in the book: "Written with [...] still a guilty conscience because of that donkey in Peshawar."

The English original edition The White Umbrella was published in 2015 by the London publisher Quartet Books. Part of the book are black and white drawings by Sally Ann Lasson, who also does cartoons for The Independent . She also designed the color drawing on the book's dust jacket, which shows Mr B and Pavlova with the white umbrella open. A map of the route taken by the two protagonists is printed on the front and back cover mirrors . Since Brian Sewell succumbed to cancer that same year, Pavlova remained his only fictional novel.

In 2017, a German translation of Claudia Feldmann's book was published by Insel Verlag . It was Sewell's first work, who in addition to Pavlova had written several non-fiction books and autobiographies that was published in German. This edition also contains the illustrations by Sally Ann Lasson, albeit smaller than the original. The drawing on the dust jacket was also used again, but the map in the cover mirror is missing.

Reviews

The book received positive reviews in the UK and Germany. The story is "lovely" and "deeply touching," and according to The Times ' Alex O'Connell , it should become a classic. However, the reviews also raised the question of whether the book would appeal to today's children. For example, Lucy Scholes of the Independent felt that many would view the particular type of Englishman and type of British identity described in the book as outdated and cheesy. Sewell himself said he was satisfied with the book because it made no concessions to children. In his opinion, current children's literature is too irrelevant.

Sally Ann Lasson's illustrations have received positive reviews several times. Laila Mahfouz criticized the omission of the card in the German edition as "inexcusable".

expenditure

  • The White Umbrella . Quartet Books, London 2015, ISBN 978-0-7043-7384-6 (English).
  • Pavlova or How to Smuggle a Donkey Halfway Around the World . Insel Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-458-17700-5 (translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • The White Umbrella. Carrying Pavlova from Peshawar to London . Speaking Tiger Books, New Delhi 2017, ISBN 978-93-8658211-9 (English).
  • The White Umbrella . David R. Godin, Jaffrey 2018, ISBN 978-1-56792-624-8 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Louise Jury: Why art critic Brian Sewell has written his first children's book at the age of 83. In: Evening Standard. February 13, 2015, accessed June 22, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c Laila Mahfouz: Review of Brian Sewell's first and last novel "Pavlova or How to Smuggle a Donkey Around Half the World" / "The White Umbrella". In: kultumea.de. April 24, 2018, accessed June 26, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Information on the dust jacket of the German edition.
  4. ↑ Ysenda Maxtone-Graham: Brian Sewell does some donkeywork: how Britain's best-known art critic put his ass on the line. In: The Spectator. April 4, 2015, accessed June 26, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Lucy Scholes: The White Umbrella by Brian Sewell, book review: A bit too twee for today's children. In: The Independent. March 29, 2015, accessed June 26, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Knud von Harbou : Miss Pawlowa drives in a Rolls-Royce. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. July 6, 2017, accessed June 26, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Alex O'Connell: The White Umbrella by Brian Sewell. In: The Times. March 7, 2015, accessed June 26, 2020 .