| Barnavelt, Jonathan Van Olden |
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Jonathan Van Olden Barnavelt is the owner of 100 High Street where he and his nephew, Lewis, live in New Zebedee, Michigan.
Jonathan plays a role much like Professor Childermass in that both befriend a much younger and timid protagonist, a theme that runs throughout Bellairs's work. Both men are single, eccentric, and live alone - that is, until Lewis moves in with his uncle - and was easily modeled after aspects of Bellairs' own personality or what he would have liked to become at an older age. The two are both kind and understanding of their younger friends with many grandfatherly traits, no doubt modeled on Bellairs' own grandfather, who "was a model of kindness and friendship" [You Can Take the Boy out of Michigan, But..., 1987] and taught the young Bellairs to read.
Uncle Jonathan's role was originally to be much larger. In Bellairs' first draft of House the action focused on Jonathan; subsequent rewrites at the request of an editor changed the hero role to Lewis. Uncle Jonathan is introduced to us when he appears to take Lewis to his new home in The House with a Clock in Its Walls:
There in the aisle stood a man with a bushy red beard that was streaked in several places in white. His Big Mac khaki trousers were bulged out in front by his pot belly, and he was wearing a gold-buttoned red vest over a blue work shirt. Lewis noticed that the vest had four pockets; there were pip cleaners sticking out of the top two, and a chain of paper clips was strung between the lower pair. One end of the chain was hooked to the winding knob of a gold watch [The House with a Clock in Its Walls, 5].
Lewis soon learns a few things about his uncle. One, he has an A.B. degree from Michigan Agricultural College in Animal Husbandry. Secondly, and more importantly, Jonathan is a wizard, though not as powerful as their neighbor, Florence Zimmermann, who just happens to be a witch. Jonathan calls himself a "parlor magician," one who can conjure up grandiose illusions of historic battles and even eclipse the moon. Whatever his limitations, in House, he and Zimmermann must use all their abilities to stop the impending End of the World at the hand of the evil Izards. With help from Lewis, the trio finds a way to stop the ticking clock inside their house.
Jonathan continues his wizardly and fatherly role in The Figure in the Shadows (1975), comforting Lewis about bullies and school. His next major role comes in 1993's The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder, when he and his nephew visit the Barnavelt ancestral home in England and awaken a curse on their family.
Throughout the Barnavelt series "Weird Beard," or "Brush Mush" (both typical good-natured insults cast on Jonathan by Mrs. Zimmermann), is a voice of reason and good-humor who must take on a new role as parental figure in Lewis's life.
On television, actor Severn Darden portrayed Uncle Jonathan in the 1979 program, Once Upon a Midnight Scary.
Bellairs probably picked the name for this character after being introduced to a little-known play in a post-graduate English literature class (also see Monday, Anthony). The 1619 play, The Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, is based on the downfall, trial, and execution of Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnavelt (1547-1619), considered to some as the founding father of the Netherlands. It was written as a collaboration between John Fletcher (1579-1625) and Philip Massinger (1583-1640), playwrights of Shakespeare's era. Fletcher wrote 15 plays and is thought to worked with Shakespeare on The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII. Around 1605 he began to write plays in collaboration with Sir Francis Beaumont, and, before his death of the plague, produced numerous works with many collaboraters.
Van Oldenbarnevelt was executed on May 13, 1619 in The Hague by Prince Maurice of Nassau on a charge of subverting religion. Prince Maurice wanted a strong Calvinistic involvement in State affairs, while Van Oldenbarnevelt was more for the Separatist thinking. This political conflict was fought by Maurice as a religious one, resulting in Maurice siding with the Calvinistic Contra-Remonstrants, declaring war on Oldenbarnevelt. Such an execution of a prominent citizen for political reasons, however in a religious disguise, in which the freedom of worship was involved, must have terrified the Pilgrim Fathers greatly, possibly leading to a decision to leave the country and bring them as the first Sabbath-keeping group to America.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_van_Oldenbarnevelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_van_Olden_Barnavelt
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