...just out of sheer curiosity. :-)
2006-07-29 17:36:09 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
I have to answer as a father who found great pleasure in reading to his five children at bedtime every night (and whenever else I could, during summer vacations and winter holidays). There's no doubt in my mind how all five of them would answer your question: "Why, of course, the Fantastic Mr. Fox!"
The book is by Roald Dahl, and I think it has recently been reissued. I could not find our old, well-worn copy to remind myself of some of the basic facts, so I resorted to a number of internet reviews. This one, from Amazon.com captures my memory of the book best:
"He's a chicken-stealing thief and a cellar-raiding rogue. He's also a loving husband and a caring father. He's even kind to rabbits. Oh, and he's a fox. What more could you want in a leading man? Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" tells the story of how Mr. Fox and his family fend off an assault by farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Losing his tail to the farmers' bullets, Mr. Fox tries to wait out the farmers' vigil but Boggis, Bunce and Bean have other plans. They try to dig up the Fox family's den with steam shovels, forcing Fox and family ever farther underground. Derided by the townspeople for flattening a whole mountain just to catch a fox, the farmers decide to see who can last longer, them or Mr. Fox.
"Mr. Fox, on the other hand, comes up with a brilliant way out, better left to be related by Dahl himself. Like any well-written children's story, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is several notches above the average simplistic picture book but not so long that it can't be read in its entirety as a bedtime story. Since it's not dumbed down for young readers, it remains a favorite of adult readers as well."
HOWEVER, as a senior reader, recalling a lifetime of reading, I have to tell you that my own personal favorite character from a "fox tale" is not a fox at all, but a fox hound.
You see I grew up on a farm in the South--a farm where a fox often raided the hen house. Like Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, we had to wait him out, and take out after him. After all, we couldn't give up those eggs for breakfast, fryers for Sunday dinner, and a good roast rooster at Thanksgiving.
But my father was a fox hunter in another, more classic sense. For true Southern fox hunters, the point is not to catch the fox, never to kill him. The pleasure is derived from the chase. He and his buddies set their hounds out to take up the trail of a fox. They all recognize their hounds by their voices; they know which one strikes the trail, which one takes the lead, which one refuses to be fooled by the fox's trick of wading in a creek or doubling back on his own trail. They sit around a camp fire, nip a little Jack Daniels every now and then, tell stories of hunts and hounds from long ago, and listen for the voices of their hounds as the chase heats up.
The best book to capture this old-time pleasure is The Voice of Bugle Ann by Mackinlay Kantor (1935). It turns out to be a murder story set in rural Missouri, but the main character is Bugle Ann, the finest fox hound ever known.
So for this father and grandfather, the favorite fox character would be the fantastic Mr. Fox, but for this good ole boy from the South, the favorites would be not a sly fox, but the great fox hound, Bugle Ann.
Read 'em both -- and enjoy!!
2006-07-29 18:17:32 · answer #1 · answered by bfrank 5 · 9⤊ 2⤋
The Fantastic Mr. Fox from the Roald Dahl book with the same title. The funny thing is that it seems like they are making the book into a movie this year... I didn't realize it until I did an Internet search to make sure I was spelling Roald Dahl's name correctly!
2006-07-29 17:45:41 · answer #2 · answered by PurpleFool 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Robin Hood as a fox in Disney's animated movie. So charming and daring. Adorible really.
2006-07-29 18:12:27 · answer #3 · answered by nezzy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Jules / Samuel L Jackson ( Which wallet is yours? The one that says bad M.. F..er) And my favorite movie with Samuel L ... Thats a tough one but Has to be Pulp Fiction but I also loved him in The Negotiator.
2016-03-16 08:25:04 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The fox in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2006-07-29 18:18:55 · answer #5 · answered by Whedonist 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Foxey Loxey in the story of Chicken Little
2006-07-29 17:45:20 · answer #6 · answered by Island Queen 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I liked the fox in Silver Snaffles, by Primrose Cumming.
2006-07-29 19:35:11 · answer #7 · answered by sallyotas 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Todd...From the Fox and the Hound
2006-07-29 21:53:19 · answer #8 · answered by Kelly + Eternal Universal Energy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋