Manny Rayner's book reviews

I must have read this book when I was about 6... E. Nesbit was the first "real" author I discovered. I think it was the first time I had ever come across a metaphysical problem in a work of literature. The children have been captured by the cruel Sea-People, and the Queen offers them a deal. Anyone who wants can take a little pill, and they will immediately forget who they are, and that they were ever the Sea-People's enemies. They will be welcome as free citizens. But if they don't take the pill, they will be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

All but one of the children refuse the pills. But the youngest agrees. And indeed, she immediately forgets who she is, and curls up happily in the Queen's lap, looking at her brothers and sisters as though they were complete strangers. Even at age 6, I knew she'd made the wrong choice, and was horrified. Now, I wonder why exactly I was so sure about it. Where had I learned that from?

Re-reading it a couple of years ago, I was amazed at how much classical literature an average middle-class Edwardian child was apparently familiar with. The children summon the mermaid by reciting the following rather fine passage from Milton's "Comus":

Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair...

The fact that they know it by heart is presented as normal and unremarkable. Times have changed.

Soporific. But in this specific case, it's a compliment.
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I must share with you this wonderful passage from John Evelyn's Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets (1699), quoted in McGee's On Food and Cooking:

... by reason of its soporifous qualities, lettuce ever was, and still continues the principal foundation of the universal tribe of Sallets, which is to cool and refresh, besides its other properties, which include beneficial influences on morals, temperance and chastity.

I still have a few reservations about the Flopsy Bunnies' morals, but I would not dare cast aspersions on their temperance or chastity.

That evening, Mother read to them from a book called The Phoenix and the Carpet, which she had had since she was a little girl. Like all the best children's books, it was written to be read aloud; you immediately knew that Mrs. Nesbit had read it aloud to her own children, and every now and then she had put in a little joke for her husband, who was pretending to do something important but was really listening too.

Mrs. Nesbit had a wonderful imagination, and she also had a strong moral sense; so strong, in fact, that she knew, without even stopping to consider the question, that it is most inconsiderate to put improving thoughts into children's books without first making them amusing. Both the children and their parents thought she wrote very well. The children just said that her books weren't boring, like most of the old books that Mother sometimes tried to read to them, while the grown-ups explained it in a more complicated way, using words like Ironic Detachment and Economy of Phrase. It is very rare to find all these excellent qualities combined in one person: almost as rare as to find a Phoenix's egg hidden inside a magic carpet, but not quite.

"His hat fell off, and the rest of his buttons burst." Isn't that a great line?

I never much liked Enid Blyton when I was a kid, but this one got read out to us aloud sometime in second grade so I had no choice. I don't remember very much of it (I fear I may not really have been paying attention), but there is one incident that stuck in my memory. The kids have found this magical ice-cream vendor who can give you absolutely any flavour you want. All but one of them do the sensible thing and just request their favourite kind. But the smart-ass in the group decides to test the limits of the system, and asks for a sardine ice-cream. And, sure enough, he gets it, and very unpleasant it is too. I can still clearly see the picture of the discomfited-looking child holding the cone, with a fish's tail poking out of the scoop of ice-cream. No doubt the episode resonated with me because I'm also a smart-ass.

The rest of this review is in my book What Pooh Might Have Said to Dante and Other Futile Speculations

Pilot for the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Railway Children versus Atlas Shrugged

It's a capacity crowd tonight at the Surrealist Boxing Stadium, and everyone's wondering if The Railway Children have a chance against Atlas Shrugged. I can see them in the blue corner, I must say they look nervous, they know they're behind on weight and reach but their supporters are out in force, that's always worth a lot, Bobbie is trying to calm Phyllis, she's whispering something in her ear. And it's the bell, Atlas Shrugged goes straight for them, oh no, she's already got the children's father arrested, we could be looking at a first round knockout here, but the mother rallies, she's ducking and weaving and she's managed to get the kids off to Yorkshire, they move into their new home. The ref is calling time, and I see there's a railway going right past their back garden, I think it's a Taggart line, this is more exciting than we dared hope.

The rest of this review is in my book What Pooh Might Have Said to Dante and Other Futile Speculations

Three copies of his sexy wife to satisfy? Even if he is a marmalade-colored tomcat, you can see why Orlando looks a little tired on the cover.

[The gazebo in Captain von Trapp's garden. Enter ROLF and LIESL from opposite sides]

LIESL: Oh Rolf!

ROLF: Oh Liesl!

[They embrace passionately. Music starts up in background]

LIESL: I am sixteen, going on seventeen/I know--

ROLF: Can't we take a break for a moment? Let's do something else.

The rest of this review is in my book If Research Were Romance and Other Implausible Conjectures

The first real book I ever read on my own; "real" in the sense of having a couple of hundred pages, not very many pictures, a plot, and some character development. I remember being puzzled by the switches between the everyday world and the fantasy world, and not understanding what was going on until about a third of the way through.

Then a clue came up which was too obvious to miss. He's in the magic city fighting the dragon... it's a clockwork dragon... he has a clockwork dragon in the everyday world... aha! The fantasy world is his toys, and he ends up in it each night when he goes to sleep! It was terribly satisfying to have figured it out. OK, it wasn't exactly a killer insight, but I was only six; if I'd been a member of GoodReads at the time, I would have posted immediately. Since the Internet hadn't been invented yet, I've had to wait 44 years before getting around to it. Well, better late than never.

This reading thing was clearly a good idea. I decided I would check out some more books from the library, and see if they were equally interesting. Within a few months, I'd turned into an E. Nesbit completist. I still think she's pretty good.

For the benefit of those people unfortunate enough never to have read Let Stalk Strine, may I take this opportunity to bring you:

Snow White and the Severed Wharves

Snow White was a beautiful young Strine secret service agent. In private life she was a doctor of philosophy and a connoisseur of immersion heating. As a counter spy (officially known as 004), she was noted for her dexterity with the hypodermic syringe and for her unswerving promiscuity in the service of her country.

Her most remarkable attributes, however, were her extraordinary powerful lungs, which she used to great advantage whenever mouth-to-mouth anti-resuscitation was the only way to escape from the embraces of a no longer useful admirer. This high-pressure method was rather frowned on by her more conservative colleagues but it was undeniably effective; her victim just dilated like a sunfish and became entangled in the chandeliers, or drifted over the horizon in whatever direction the wind happened to be blowing.

It was a dull, grey autumn afternoon when Snow White left the Colonel's office. She stepped into her roller skates, and picked her way carefully through the traffic to the middle of the road. Skating along the centre line of a main highway usually calmed her turbulent spirit and gave her a sense of purpose and fulfilment. But today, somehow, she felt troubled and uneasy.

The Colonel's warning was still ringing in her ears. `No more lust, Buster, I trust you. It's a must,' he had said, putting down the rhyming dictionary and lighting her cigar. `Carry two Mausers in your trousers, and pack a new Luger with the nougat.'

Snow White knew what lay behind that friendly half-smile which contrasted so oddly with his grey, intelligent eyes, obscured now by the large empty prune can with which he always concealed his face from his subordinates. Poor James, she thought, how sensitive he still is about having no nose. His voice droned on, `... and your teeth will be sharpened before you leave. That is all.' He paused and spoke a few words into the intercom.

He had briefed her well, she thought to herself as she overtook a large black sedan filled with Asians carrying cameras. Her mission was simple, but dangerous. She was to make her way undetected into `their' territory, destroy the fleet of mini-submarines, and cut loose the floating wharves at Vitamin Bay. That was all. Simple enough, heaven knows - yet her uneasiness persisted.

Suddenly she threw away her cigar, put out her right arm and pulled sharply into the kerb at the left. She made her way thoughtfully towards a small, unobtrusive building which bore a large sign: `Day Old Pullets - Hot Water - Ears bashed Wile-U-Wate - Cocker Puppies - Clean Toilets - Devonshire Teas'. She rapped on the boarded-up window with a roller skate. `Are you there, James?' she called softly. There was no answer. She went round to the locked door, put her lips to the keyhole and blew out the lock. She stepped quietly inside. The Colonel was already there. She took him in her strong arms and kissed him fiercely on the prune can immediately above the words, `Contains no preservatives'. He snuggled close to her and gurgled tinnily. She took his hand and together they walked along the narrow catwalk towards the submarines.

Snow White patted the Luger inside her armpit, and sniffed cautiously at the outgoing tide. There wouldn't be much time, she thought. She bent down and bit throught the first cable with her powerful teeth and watched the grey hull sink slowly out of sight into the mud.

She looked around her. It was almost dark now, and the Colonel appeared to be asleep. She smiled grimly as she scrabbled among the barnacles, searching for the second cable. Suddenly, without warning, a blinding light flashed into her eyes, and a suave, unctuous voice broke the silence: `Weaner rup this sprogram to bring you an important annancement from the Sinny Cricket Grand. New South Wiles are arlat for three unren twen yite.' The menacing voice chilled her, and her hand gripped the Luger. `The forecast for tomorrow is for scadded shares and Sathie's twins. An now we return you to this chewdio.' There was a click, then silence. Once more she was in darkness.

She was alone now; the Colonel had disappeared. At last she found the second cable and sank her teeth into the steel. The oily water closed over the last of the wharves. Her mission was completed.

Through a little window in the wrist of her black rubber frogwoman's suit she saw that it was only two hours since she had left the Colonel's office. She felt her way through the dark hut to the doorway, and out into the chill, mountain air. She carefully adjusted her skates, pulled out from the kerb and made for the centre-line of the road.

She smiled gently in the darkness, and switched on her tail-light. It was, she thought as she spat out a few shreds of cable, good - she paused and lit a cigar - to be - as James would say - alive.

Kids who've grown up learning to blow their noses in disposable tissues just won't get this book. It's tragic.

Of all the knights in Appledore
The wisest was Sir Thomas Tom
He multiplied as far as four
And knew what nine was taken from
To make eleven. He could write
A letter to another knight.

Some people like to find creative readings of books and films which hinge on interpreting key parts as dream sequences. A well-known example is The Piano, where it's reasonable to argue that Ada actually drowns. On this reading, the last few minutes are her dying fantasies as she floats deep underwater, helplessly trapped by the weight of the piano. The last thing you see is indeed her drowned body twisting in the current, and it's not clear which is dream and which is reality.

Beth Ann and I were discussing today how far the above style of analysis could be taken. This book is a fine candidate. The normal reading has Peter escaping and running home without his shoes or jacket. However, there is perhaps a non-standard reading, where he is really caught by Mr McGregor, and the second half of the book consists of his hallucinations as he's having his neck wrung prior to being skinned and made into a pie. We apologize to any Beatrix Potter fans who may find this distasteful, but you are told at the beginning that that's what happened to Peter's father. Foreshadowing, you understand.

We haven't found any smoking-gun clues, but then we didn't spend much time looking. With a little luck, there's a scholarly article waiting to be written here... please mention us if you do that!

In a recent thread, some people stated their objections to literature which fails in its duty to be gender-balanced. I can absolutely see their point, except that it is a little difficult to find books which pass the test. Almost everything I could think of did seem to have either more men than women, or more women than men. It's dreadful.

In fact, I was about to give up... when I suddenly remembered Here We Go! No doubt, sneering critics will carp at the daringly minimalist plot and character development, and signally fail to appreciate the understated faux-naive style. I've had too many arguments about this to want to do it again; there are those, alas, who cannot see true greatness, even when it's thrust under their noses. But say what you will, the book is gender-balanced. Janet, John, Mother and Father: exactly 50% of each sex. I rest my case.

I think I kind of liked this when I was 3, though it was never one of my favorites. Later on in life, however, I did appreciate the version that Private Eye wrote to celebrate the outrageous rights deal which Sky negotiated for covering the Premier League:

Hey diddle diddle
The fat cat's on the fiddle
Murdoch is over the moon
The watchdog failed to stop the fun
And the dish ran away with the football