Love-struck elephant hits perfect note for Valentine’s Day
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, love is in the air — but some handle it better than others. Elephant, for example, is totally discombobulated by the feelings he has.
First published in Italian, When an Elephant Falls in Love is a tongue-in-cheek treatment that children will find amusing and older people reading it aloud to those children will likely greet with a spark of wry recognition.
After all, who among us cannot relate to the opening statement that when an elephant falls in love, “he does many foolish things.”
For example: “He hides whenever he sees her.”
Anyone who has ever experienced young love will remember the confusion and desperation that often accompanies feelings of affection — wanting to be noticed by those we love, but being too shy to present ourselves.
Author Davide Cali, in ascribing those feelings to a massive pachyderm, introduces an element of absurdity that keeps his text light and airy; illustrator Alice Lotti, in her depiction of the lovestruck hero of this book, creates situations that extend the humour.
Her stylized elephant — a massive, stone-grey shape with just a few simple lines denoting an ear, toenails, the odd wrinkle and
eyeball — is simple but charming. When he hides from his beloved, it’s hard not to laugh because lurking behind a skinny tree doesn’t offer much cover for his bulk.
He clearly wants to present himself in the best possible light, because he “takes a bath every day, and even washes behind his ears.” He dresses with care, the author tells us, as the illustrator depicts Elephant in front of a mirror, trying to decide between a green polka-dot tie and an orange striped one. In the end, he goes for sartorial splendour
in the form of a red bow tie, a top hat and cane.
Elephant tries to watch his food intake, but in the dead of night, raiding the refrigerator, he “ends up finishing the cheesecake.”
Consumed with thoughts of love, he writes endless letters but never mails them; he spends hours on his back, contemplating the clouds, and sometimes he can’t help feeling sad: “If only she knew I existed!”
But even when he musters up the courage to bring her flowers, he leaves them at the door, rings her bell and runs away. So it comes as a great surprise, toward the end of the book, when another hulking grey shape — this one with a bright yellow bow tied to its tail — passes by and it turns out to be none other than the equally shy female.
“It’s love!” reads the triumphant text over the final spread, in which Elephant and his beloved stand face to blushing face, their trunks intertwined into a heart shape.
Happy Valentine’s Day, one and all.