Thanks to Ted Hughes (The Iron Man - Ted Hughes)

Member Name: nursingstudent

Product:	The Iron Man - Ted Hughes
Date:	08/03/03 (4376 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderful imagery, Fast paced, The black and white illustrations throughout the text

Disadvantages: Too short, , only 62 pages!

A week ago I settled down with the children on the sofa with a bag of pick and mix and high hopes. The credits rolled and we watched with eager anticipation for the first scenes of Ted Hughes ‘The Iron Man’. What followed could surely only be loosely termed as being based on the book, there were so many differences that it seemed a travesty . We watched a thoroughly entertaining film, great characters, excellent cartoon art, good dialogue and a happy ending but it was still galling to me that it was so far removed from the work of the fantastic Ted Hughes.

In a nutshell the film concentrated on the friendship that grows up between a giant Iron Man and a small boy called Hogarth, the efforts of the military to find this mysterious monster and the help given to the unlikely pair by a scrap merchant who makes metal sculpture in his spare time. Basically, the Iron Man in the film is a weapon but is unaware of this fact until threatened by the military, he becomes a danger, is fired upon by a missile which will ultimately kill all the people in the vicinity. Iron Man acknowledges this and in a magnificent show of bravery he flies into the air, collides with the missile, causes a huge explosion and so averts a national disaster. Lots of tears and regrets are followed by a happy ending with all of the Iron Mans bits and pieces locating each other across the globe and reforming. A nice tale with goodies and baddies and a moral point at the end. But nothing like the book.

Disappointed at the ‘adaptation’ I decided to introduce my children to the wonderful world of the Iron Man direct from the pages of Ted Hughes amazing book. It had sat on the bookcase for many years, unread and unappreciated by three children who were drawn to books with colourful pictures, lift-the-flaps and anything in a boxed set. They were not tempted to open the front cover and investigate the treasure in their hands, they failed to be impressed by
the stern front cover, the monochrome image of a metal man in a junkyard in the dead of night. No explanation on the back cover to offer them a taste of what was between those pages. Yet at my indignation following the film I encouraged them to dig it out and dust it off. It was time to show them the real Iron Man.....

The Iron Man is described as a ‘Childrens Story in Five Nights’, the plan was to read a chapter every evening until the book was complete. No chance! The children were entranced from the first few pages and every time the book was closed there would be cries of ‘more! more!’ and so it was read over two evenings with barely a pause for breath each time! Ted Hughes style of writing is incredible, he really engages his readers and captures their imagination...

“The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where had he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows.’ And so the opening lines set the stage for an adventure, a journey that takes him tumbling over the edge of the cliff and possible destruction. The first chapter is a description of how the man rebuilds his shattered body, carefully reconstructing his separated pieces until he is whole again, a great chapter to use body actions with the children, creeping hands, blinking eyeballs and such like. Fantastic.

In the second chapter we are introduced to Hogarth, who is not at all like the boy in the film, this child is afraid, very afraid, he does not befriend the giant whom he encounters whilst out fishing, he runs and runs and runs, home to the safety of his family who surprisingly enough believe his account. The whole affair is taken out of the hands of the child, even though in the movie he is one of the main two characters. The grown ups formulate a plan to capture the monster, digging a huge pit and laying a trap. This is all in vain though as the Iron Man beats a hasty
retreat and the men are left wondering whether they imagined the whole thing. Enter Hogarth once more who whilst trying to ensnare a fox in the hole manages to land himself a larger quarry, the Iron Man. Much rejoicing is followed by much filling in of the hole. Hogarth is consumed with guilt and much consuming of picnics occurs on the newly created grassy hillock above the giant.

Until...... ‘one day, a father, a mother, a little boy and a little girl stopped their car and climbed the hill for a picnic. They had never heard of the Iron Man and they thought the hill had been there forever.’...... Before too long their plate of sandwiches, tomatoes and boiled eggs are rolling down the hill as the Iron Man decides that it is time to vacate and they scarper ...... ‘ they did not see the great iron head, square like a bedroom, with red glaring headlamp eyes, and with the tablecloth, still with the chicken and the cheese, draped across the top of it, rising out of the top of the hillock, as the Iron Man freed himself from the pit’. This bit had my kids literally squealing with delight - what an image!

After a night of devouring barbed wire like candy floss we are well into the next chapter and the dilemma of what to do with this gigantic metal munching menace. Hogarth lures him into a scrap yard where he can chew greasy black stoves like toffee and eat brass knobs off double-decker bedsteads and where he can eat lengths of rusty chain like it was spaghetti!

Now this could be the happy ending that the children were looking for, but there was more in store for the Iron Man yet. Ted Hughes introduces mystery and intrigue, a star increasing in size is spotted in the sky, getting closer and closer to the Earth, no-one knows what it is, or whether it will stop before it hits. Until one day. It stops. And from the heart of it appears a huge creature, a dragon, ‘terribly black, terribly scaly, terribly knobbl
y, terribly horned, terribly hairy, terribly clawed, terribly fanged, with vast indescribably terrible eyes.....’ Time for the kids eyes to get very, very wide indeed!!

And so it lands..... and covers the whole of Australia. ‘That’s impossible!’ cry out the children, who have been there and know just how big it is. ‘Not for Ted Hughes’ dragon!’ I say. And so this terribly terrible dragon proceeds to suck in and devour all living creatures. How would the Earth rid itself of such a forbidding creature? Rockets don’t work. Missiles don’t work. Bombs and shells are merely shrugged off. The Iron Man has a solution, and a very clever one it is too. It involves an oversized barbeque and a challenge, oh, and the sun. Needless to say, the Iron Man is victorious and the dragon has to pay a forfeit, he has to revert to his original purpose in life, a singing star spirit, and he has to live inside the moon, coming out every evening to sing his beautiful songs. A happy ending is had by all, the Iron Man takes his retirement in his well stocked junkyard and the world is calmed into a peaceful state by the sublime singing of the dragon.

‘But Mummy.... that’s nothing like the film!’
‘I know, now you see why I wanted to read it to you.’
‘The book is far better than the film Mummy!’
And Mummy smiles a knowing smile to herself. Thank you Ted Hughes.

Summary: