Summer Re-Read #2

Tuck Everlasting

By Natalie Babbitt

 

The story follows Winnie Foster, the daughter of a wealthy, important family, who feels stifled at home and one day decides to run away from it all.

When she heads into the woods on her parents’ property she meets the Tuck family, an odd group of people unlike anyone she’s ever met before. But the Tucks have a secret, one that they feel is vitally important to keep: eighty-seven years ago they drank from a spring in the Foster’s wood—and have since then been unable to grow old or die.

With only good intentions in mind, the Tucks spirit Winnie away to their home. There, the family attempts to explain the consequences that could arise from the discovery of the spring, and in so doing they introduce Winnie to a way of life that is strange, but beautiful. And in the end, she must decide whether or not to help the Tuck family protect the dark secret of the spring.

 

This story adds insight into the concepts of death and eternity. During her adventure, Winnie ends up falling for the Tuck family, and their son, Jesse, in particular. And while the family grows attached to her as well, she ends up torn between the contrasting ideas of the young and boisterous Jesse, who seems to relish in the opportunities eternal life can offer, and Angus Tuck, the tired, world-weary head of the household who warns her of the negative sides of eternity.

Her love for them offers one last choice to consider, apart from keeping the spring a secret: live the course of her own life and move on, as Tuck encourages, or take a drink and spend an eternity with Jesse.

 

I believe I was in third grade the first time I read this book. And, of course, I loved it. It’s a beautiful story with an ending that stays with you, even if it’s been years since you read it last. (And how can you beat a title like Tuck Everlasting? I’d kill for a title so elegant and profound!)

But, if I’m being completely honest here, after re-reading it as an adult I’ve found myself caught in one of those rare instances when… I actually think I enjoy the movie more.

I know. Shocking.

Not to say the book is bad, now that I’m reading it as an adult. It is still a beautiful story, and the author has this way of describing her world that is incredibly soothing and really pulls you into the setting. Really, I just feel like the movie added and changed enough things to better get across the story Tuck Everlasting is telling.

First of all, they made Winnie older.

This was another instance in which the age difference was kind of weird to me. I get that a ten year old can be totally enamored with a seventeen year old, but it’s hard to believe that a seventeen year old would return those feelings. If she’d been a few years older—again, maybe fourteen at least—the relationship would be a little easier to grasp. But the book gave me the impression that either Jesse just wants “a wife” (and Winnie just happens to be the first girl to provide that opportunity), or he really is attracted to this ten-year-old he hardly knows.

Either way, even telling her to wait until she’s his age before drinking from the spring does not convince me that it’s love.

In the movie, however, they portray Winnie as more of a fifteen or sixteen year old girl. As well as that, she doesn’t just spend one day with the Tucks, she spends an indeterminable amount of time with them, which grants her more opportunities to get to know each of them. Because of this, her relationship with Jesse develops. It doesn’t just appear the instant she sees him. I’m more convinced it really is love, and not a naive little girl’s first crush.

And it makes her decision to join him in eternity that much harder.

Which brings me to the concepts of death and eternity, which I feel were emphasized more in the film than they were in the book. First of all, Tuck’s speech to Winnie in both mediums is similar, but I find the movie’s to be more powerful by the simple summation with the words, “Don’t be afraid of death, Winnie. Be afraid of the un-lived life.”

Also, one of my favorite and most heart wrenching scenes takes place after Winnie returns home from her time with the Tucks. Her grandmother is reaching the end of her life and Winnie ends up observing the affect it has on her mother. After the funeral, a grieving Mrs. Foster tells her daughter, “I just want to keep you my little girl forever.”

*Sad doe eyes while lower lip trembles*

What’s important to me about this scene is that it not only gives Winnie more to think about in regards to keeping the secret of the spring as well as drinking from it herself, but it also shows a vulnerable side of her mother that she’s never known before. Now Winnie is seeing what lies beneath the tough, proud exterior; she sees someone human. Someone who can be hurt. And someone who’s always loved her, but never known how to show it.

In turn, this brings her closer to her family, which leads to the Fosters beginning to travel and live the lives that they have. And this, I think, is what drives Winnie to her final decision.

Which brings me to another point, and I’ll try to avoid any spoilers: I like the way Winnie ended up utilizing the spring in that last scene of the movie. It just seems to have been done with more purpose than what happens to the spring at the end of the book. I think it gave more to Winnie’s character that way.

 

As a side note, I also like what the movie did with Miles, the older brother. In the book he has the same exact backstory in which his wife packed up their two children and left him decades before because she thought he’d sold his soul to the devil. But in the book, that story is kind of here and then gone, while in the movie they really emphasize his pain at not being able to be with his wife and children.

 

Oh, and William Hurt as Angus Tuck. Just “William Hurt as Angus Tuck.”

 

The only thing that bugs me in the movie is the jailbreak scene. I always thought it was kind of corny, and they could have just left it the way it was in the book.

But I can’t complain too much, otherwise.

 

Would I still recommend the book? Of course I would. If you’re able, I’d say read the book before you watch the movie. I believe both are worth taking a look at. And if you like one better than the other, that’s fine. Just look for which piece tells you the story best.