Karen Finley: Pooh Unplugged - An Unauthorized Memoir

I'm the kind of parent that goes all the way for my daughter-I feel it is important in child development for the child to adore something the parent hates.

-Karen Finley, from American Chestnut Karen Finley's Pooh Unplugged: An Unauthorized Memoir is a cutting parody that dissects hypocrisy and hypercommercialism by taking Pooh and Christopher Robin, Tigger and Eeyore out of their fairy tale and into real life. The Hundred Acre Wood is alive with ennui, secret sexual fantasies, and greed. Pooh has an eating disorder, Piglet suffers from low self-esteem, Owl has delusions of grandeur, Eeyore is just plain depressed, and Christopher Robin is an enabler in Finley's deftly drawn cartoon world. Through the eyes of one of America's most potent social observers, the lure of big bucks, syndication, and movie deals infects Pooh Corner, and the changes wrought by the "Disneyfic-ation" of these lovely woodland creatures is both hilarious and horrifying.