The Further Travels and Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Unfortunately, the life of an adventurer also brings with it boredom, interminable periods of waiting, and the nuisance of bureaucracy gone mad. Many a voyage I have undertaken has been stymied by irksome impediments like these at times, which is why I never fail to bring ample reading material with me wherever I go.

I hold the recounted tales of pilgrims similar to my own closest to my heart, for there is kinship on the road of life, and bonds that must be renewed and strengthened at every opportunity. How many nights have I drifted off to slumber with the triumphs of Amir Hamza, Lemuel Gulliver, Simplicius Simplicissimus, or Neils Klim dancing through my dreams? Where would I be without Lucian, Micromégas, or the voyages of Sinbad? When abroad, a book is worth more than its weight in gold, and countless times, I have found myself more at home between the coarse pages of a tome than beneath the silken sheets of a queen consort’s bed.

More than just an idle way to pass the time, a book, I have found, to be an awfully amenable companion—never questioning my judgments of its quality, sometimes providing a hearty laugh in times of sorrow, often shedding light where there is only darkness, and always offering up something new. And the thicker ones have even been known to stop a musket ball or two in their day. I remember confronting a French dragoon on the field at Bautzen. In the midst of heavy fighting, I let fly at him at nearly point-blank range with my fusil while he simultaneously thrust at my breast with his bayonet. Imagine our dual amazement when we both rose unscathed from the other’s attack, a copy of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship tucked in my vest pocket stopping the point of his blade at page 138, while an edition of Montaigne’s essays stymied my shot just before it pierced my enemy’s heart. So overjoyed were we two that neither was to meet his maker that day, we each gifted the other our respective volumes as tokens of our gratitude and parted on the most amiable of terms.

So it was that I amused myself of an afternoon whiling away the hours with a copy of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, when, to my dismay, I came to the end of the book and realized I’d no more reading material on hand. Seeking to remedy the situation, I made fast for the first library I should happen across. A good library can be a second home to the traveling man in a foreign land—more comforting than his own living room, more inviting than his local pub, and more inspiring than any parish chapel. As a patron of athenaeums the world over, I know from whence I speak. Don’t believe me? Pay a visit to the reading rooms of the Strahov in Prague or the Royal Portuguese in Rio, and I defy you to find a setting more peace inducing for the weary mind hungry for enlightenment. Go ahead. Visit them. I’ll wait.

The place of salvation for my literary drought lay close at hand as I soon sighted a public library. I was at the time making my way around the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and though far from the grand reading room of the British Museum, its simple beige walls and steel stacks would serve my purpose nonetheless. I have never once entered a library and failed to leave without making at least a dozen selections. The Munchausens have always been voracious consumers of literature, down to the last, and living up to my line’s reputation, I commandeered a squeaky-wheeled library cart on which to arrange my choices and began lazily meandering the stacks, scrutinizing each and every spine in search of some previously undiscovered treasure.

It won’t confound you to learn I have been known to spend days, sometimes weeks on end, among a library’s collection mining for literary gems. Some time ago, I was left the keys to the private library of a certain imperial-royal stadtholder named von Wichtigtuer, then governor of the Duchy of Bukovina, and given my leave to remain and explore the collection for as long as I wished.

His acquisitions took up three entire rooms of his official apartments in Czernowitz, and I entered on a Tuesday in March 1913, planning to stay no more than a day or two but became so utterly engaged with volume forty-seven of Betteridge’s Travels in the Ruurdu Federation that I’d completely lost track of all time. Imagine my amazement when I finally emerged from the library in the spring of 1919 to discover the duchy dissolved, the Austrian Empire disbanded, and the entire region now wholly the province of the Kingdom of Romania!

Such is the power of a good book.

So, I’d all the intent of occupying my afternoon on the hunt for fabulist quarry in that jungle of paper and pasteboard when my ears met with the distinctive bedlam of children’s laughter coming from just round the corner.

Leaving my cart behind, I snaked through the stacks like a bloodhound hot on the scent, eventually making my way toward a door behind which stood a brightly decorated room splashed with colorful murals of googly-eyed animals frolicking under puffy white clouds dotting an azure sky. A children’s reading space occupied just then by a small horde of tykes and their parents all gathered around a figure most curiously attired.

This individual, who called herself Broadway Sparkles, wore a shocking purple lion’s mane wig and a flowing ball gown in the mermaid style, sequined in shimmering green, gold, and ruby. Her face, painted after the fashion of Japanese Kabuki, was powdered white with flames of silver paint coating her eyelids beneath high-arching brows. As she read, her voice modulated with the ease of a true thespian, shifting adroitly from basso profundo to mezzo-soprano and every stop in between, as she brought each character to life with a dramatic flair I’d only ever witnessed on the stages of London’s West End.

The source of her work, Pago’s New Family, told the story of a young orphaned black bear, the titular Pago, as he navigated the uncertain waters of his new adoptive family of badgers. Through a series of adventures, and humorous misadventures, young Pago comes to see himself more and more the badger, so much so, he begins using ash to paint his face fur white like his new sister, Amu, and even uses some tree sap to glue on a tail fashioned out of pine bark.

The children absolutely ate it up, giggling furiously when Pago, freshly whitened, inadvertently catches the fancy of a nearsighted neighbor on the prowl for a mate, and mimicking Broadway Sparkles’s wild sashay as Pago danced at the annual family picnic. What a hoot! Never have I seen an audience so enthralled and thoroughly entertained.

We were on the verge of learning just how Pago was going to extricate himself after getting stuck while relieving himself in a prairie dog hole when the fun was violently interrupted. Several angry folks, some bearing signs of protest, others bearing arms, burst through the doors shouting all forms of vile remonstrance, sending the children to flight.        

“Stop this abomination!” one of the interlopers shouted, a blond-haired woman red with rage who violently tore the book from Broadway’s hands.

“Sexualizing the young is a disgrace,” another spat, pointing an accusatory finger in the direction of the parents trying to comfort their confused and frightened children. “You should be ashamed, all of you.”

“Pedophile story hour is what they should call this,” one mustachioed man said, the butt end of a handgun protruding from his belt. To my eyes, this fellow especially struck me as someone who’d probably never opened a book a day in his life.

Some of the parents hastily scooped up their children and hightailed it through a side entrance, while a few others elected to face their adversaries head-on. Tensions in the room quickly built to a fever pitch. The shouting became so confused, it was impossible to tell who fought for which side.

For her part, Broadway Sparkles remained seated, calm and composed, as a lady should in such situations. I took this opportunity to introduce myself and offer my assistance in defusing the matter.

“I’m afraid that won’t do, honey,” she said. “It’s the same just about everywhere. They try to run us out, spouting all kinds of nonsense like we’re child molesters or monsters or something. What kind of monster am I? They’re the ones carrying the guns in a children’s reading room. I’m just trying to bring a little joy into someone else’s life. You don’t see any of them reading to their kids, do you? Of course not. They’re too busy telling other people how to raise their children. Ought to mind their own.”

Quite right, I thought. Beautiful and well spoken.

“Don’t listen to that freak,” the blond-haired woman who’d so recently thrown Pago to the ground said. Drawing closer, I could see the veins in her neck bulged grotesquely like oak tree roots beneath the skin. “He’s not bringing joy to anyone. He’s poisoning our children’s minds with his disgusting lifestyle, making them think it’s normal to dress and act like that.”

“And where are your children, madame?” I said. I looked about the group of intruders, some ten or so in all, sighting not a child among them. “How exactly is it your child’s mind being poisoned if they’re not even here?””

“I would never expose my son to something like this,” she replied.

“Then how is he is in any danger?” I said, confused.

“It’s not just my child. It’s all children. Our children. We have to protect them from this. They say they’re here to just read books to kids, but look at what they read to them. Stories about little boys dressing up like girls. Children with two mommies or two daddies. Telling them it’s normal to think you’re a girl if you were born a boy. And, by the way, I read to my kid all the time. Just not any of this sick garbage. A bear convinced he’s a badger? It’s gender nonconformity dressed up to look like a kid’s story.”

“Forgive me, I’m perplexed. Is it the book or the reader you object to?”

“Both. No child should be allowed to read this filth. And this pervert shouldn’t be allowed around any children. Period.”

The flinging of that most odious term, pervert, struck a nerve with Ms. Sparkles, who abruptly rose to her feet, a towering and quite impressive height for a lady of her, ahem, figure, even without the pumps.

“I’m more woman under here than you are, honey,” she said, running her long-nailed fingers over her hips. “Give people like this their way, and all kids will be reading are books about how America is number one, there was never any slavery, gays don’t exist, there was no Holocaust, and the environment is just fine. Everything is all hunky-dory. No Dr. Seuss, no Harry Potter, just Mommy, Daddy, God, and country.”

“Ladies, please,” I said, insinuating myself between the two. “This behavior becomes neither of you. There must be a middle ground we can find. What if I were to choose a selection and do a reading myself? I have been known to entertain an audience from time to time, you know. Perhaps we can agree on a neutral title, then invite all the children and their families to come and listen.”

“There’s hardly a book in this place anymore that doesn’t stink of the liberal agenda,” the raging blond said.

“And there’s no way we’re going to take any of your whitewashed crap,” Broadway countered. “Adele Hitler here gets her way, and they’ll just burn this place to the ground.”

The two were as immovable as the pillars of the Acropolis, so I proposed to begin the venture with a clean slate. Being a neutral observer with no agenda of my own, I volunteered to write an entirely new book for the children myself, then present it to one and all exactly one week hence. I promised a story of good, wholesome fun, no morals to be had, no lessons to be learned. Reluctantly, all parties agreed to this arrangement, and we adjourned until the following Saturday.

It’s amusing to reflect on it now, I confess, but for the first time in my life, I felt as if I’d bitten off a tad more than I could chew. With decades—nay, centuries—of experience documenting my travels for posterity, you would think piecing together a children’s book would be the simplest of tasks. Quite the contrary. It nearly proved to be Munchausen’s undoing.

For three whole days and nights, I taxed the limits of my brain, raising a frightful ruckus in the antechambers of my mind looking for a theme, a thread that would appeal to the fanciful imaginations of a child yet leave no noticeable impression of any kind. To giggle, to cry, to howl with laughter, and then to forget, that was my aim.

For inspiration, I thought back to the stories of my own youth in Bodenwerder, to Gunhilde, the nursemaid who would regale me with tales of humor and derring-do whilst I sat at her feet in wide-eyed wonder. There was the Roman stable boy, Lucius, and his trusty hedgehog, Ajax, who, with nothing more than guile and a handful of corn husks, single-handedly sunk the entire Carthaginian fleet off the coast of Sardinia. And Old Otto the mule who got into some bad feed and who had such dysentery, his excrement piled so high, it dammed up the Mulde, nearly flooding the town of Grimma. Not to be outdone, there were the feats of Hornved, the pig farmer of Eggelsberg, who bartered grazing rights for not one, not two, but six separate factions of giants dwelling in the mountains of Upper Styria. Oh, what joy I lived hearing those stories. Mine was a childhood indeed wonderfully fulfilling.

Armed as I was with these memories, I finally set to work. Sadly, the story is but half the story, as it were. A good children’s book must be artfully illustrated as well, and in this regard, I must concede my commitment outstripped my abilities, for when it comes to spinning a yarn, mine is a prodigious (and prolix) loom, but in the arena of watercolor, it is I who am all wet. Without time to find an artist commensurate with the task, I struck upon an idea sure to bring a smile to all faces and fire the imagination. Taking a page out of Broadway Sparkles’s book, who so adroitly acted out the part of the animals in her story, I elected to let the animals in my story speak for themselves, and to that end, I paid visit to the local zoo, where I procured the required players before setting off for the library.

Not wanting to ruin any surprises for my audience, I carefully brought in my actors through a rear door of the library and secreted them in a storage room until their cue to appear on the stage. Peering through the door of the reading room, I found it filled with children and parents from all walks of life gathered to hear my tale. Ms. Sparkles was there too, as were many of her cohort, all fancifully decked out for the occasion. The local news station sent out a crew to take video, while, on the street, police had their hands full keeping the peace as hundreds of out-of-towners descended on the library intent on making their voices heard despite my promise to present a simple, happy children’s story.

With the stage set, I entered the reading room with my protagonist, a six-year-old Asian elephant named Lionel, in tow. To ensure his docility, I’d filled Lionel’s belly with carrots and legumes earlier that morning, and in the storeroom quickly taught him how to mimic the actions of a butterfly as well as a few steps of the pas de deux so he’d be prepared when the appropriate time came. The room fell silent as we took our places, mine in a low plastic chair before the children, Lionel’s on a denim beanbag at my side.

Opening my book to page one, I cleared my throat and began my story with an oratory flourish.

“In a far-off land, where cherry trees blossom with mango fruit year-round and mountain peaks of moss tower so high as to touch the very tops of the cotton-candy clouds, there lived a young elephant named Lionel.”

“Of course, it just had to be a boy elephant,” a hushed whisper reached my ears.

“A far-off land?” another murmured. “What, doesn’t anyone live in America anymore? That’s an Asian elephant. You know what that means? Far-off land is code for China.”

Not to be deterred by the inconsequential criticisms of the unimaginative, I continued.

“This was an important day for Lionel, for today was Mother’s Day, and Lionel was looking forward to making a card for his mother during arts and crafts time—”

“We don’t allow our children to celebrate exclusionary holidays,” a woman interrupted. “Not all children have mothers. Implying they do is an unfair bias.”

“Madame, please,” I said. “The story—”

“You know, in our district, we forced the board to eliminate art class altogether,” a fellow said. “My kid came home one day with a picture he drew of a little black horsey kissing a little white horsey. And somehow his so-called teacher didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

“Yes, well, if we could just return to the story,” I pleaded. “Today was an important day for another reason too. Lionel was excited because today his teacher promised to tell him all about the magical history of Liverwort Valley, Lionel’s ancestral home, and—”

“Hope that history includes decades of oppression by human overseers,” a shout came from the back. “It’s a known fact that elephants have been exploited for centuries against their will as beasts of burden all over southeast Asia.”

“There are no humans in Liverwort Valley,” I protested. “It’s a magical place filled with—”

“Typical,” came the retort. “How are you just going to gloss over years of servitude like it never even happened? Kids need to know the truth.”

“Your truth, maybe,” another blurted from the far side of the room. “My kid certainly didn’t own any elephants, and I’m not going to let you make him believe he did.”

Suddenly, and without warning, every man and woman was on their feet. Invectives flew from mouth to ear and back again like so much cannon fire. Near the back door, a physical altercation was brewing, chests puffed, and threats of retribution were hurled at the librarians, who struggled in vain to keep the peace. The rising tension in the room was not lost on Lionel, who, sensing danger, got to his feet and trumpeted the alarm, stomping in circles looking for a means of egress, and in the process, trampling several children to death. The kids, previously enthralled by the presence of Lionel, began screaming wildly for their parents, but in all the commotion, their pleas of terror fell on deaf ears, so engaged were their guardians in their own petty squabbling they’d forgotten, quite literally, about the elephant in the room.