What do you think about Wordsworth’s way of looking at the world, and how is it similar in Moojie Littleman?–Abhimanyu Pandey
Regarding Wordsworth’s “The Idiot Boy” and “We Are Seven”, it can be said that William Wordsworth and I share a mutual interest in children trapped in difficult circumstances. Children are also wiser than grownups or figures of authority. Moojie, an unwanted, disabled boy, teaches his aunt, a professor, his grandfather, a Civil War captain, and his adoptive father, a mapmaker, lessons in compassion, grace, and faith, lessons that nudge them beyond academia, history, and science.
Wordsworth also speaks of “invisible presences” and “unknown modes of being”. In “Tintern Abbey” he writes:
…And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
In the same poem, he says, We are laid asleep in body and become a living soul.
He refers to himself as a pagan who sees nature as a living being that communicates with us. Strangely, I, who consider myself a mystic, share a fascination with revelation, transcendent experiences, and unified, loving forces of the universe. In The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman, there is a moment of awakening when Moojie looks out at the night sky and The stars seemed to be talking, beaming out a bright message to him. (p. 56). While Wordsworth and I may differ in our names for the consciousness that speaks through nature, we seem to share a consensus that there is a “voice” or an “ineffable” presence with whom we can commune.
Robin Gregory 