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tbr_the_unconquered's review
4.0
Apart from photographs and words I have never been to the city of London. However, this city has been made familiar to me thanks to the likes of authors like China Mieville, Jonathan Stroud and Arthur Conan Doyle. Now there is one more taker for this position and it is Michael de Larabeiti for in his Borrible Trilogy he laid out London in front of my senses to see,hear,breathe and drown in !
Three chapters in the life of a race of fiercely independant quasi-human characters named the Borribles. They are very close to being immortal if not carried off by the law ( which they call woolies by the way !) and live their lives in the backyards of the so called civilized society. A brief run down on the stories can be done as :
The Borribles : My pick among all the three tales. It is grim,dark, bloody, battered and has more bruises than a schoolyard fight. The central thread is the classic tale of quest to wrestle back lost glory. A ragatag bunch of rookies are chosen and so begins a fight that gets bloodier by the page. A well summed up sketch of courage,loyalty,honor,deciet and friendship among senseless violence. What captured my interest was this simple line : If you are my friend, follow me around the bend.
The Borribles Go For Broke : The central plot line is more of a seen-it-before one and there is a fair bit of melodrama here which while not outrightly odd still serves as a deterrant. The adventure part remains but somehow it does not end up being as gallant as its predecessor. There is also an effort to make this tale more heroine centric which derails somewhere along the way and it obstainately remains male oriented a tale.
Across The Dark Metropolis : The largest story of them all and pretty much was the most boring one for me. There was a quest at its heart which was so outrageously dumb that I do not want to mention it here. This story is also the most action packed one of the lot but somehow failed to arouse any interest in me. There was also the character named Sydney and every time she uttered something I felt like listening to a piece of chalk being scratched over the writing board !
I give this book four stars for the imagination used to dream up the ambience and history of the characters( both the protagonists & the antagonists ), the exceptionally brilliant descriptions of London, the grim and dark tone that permeates throughout the tales and not to forget the dialog too. This would be a good children's book for it is choke full of ideology of the heroic kind and some action sequences that can flex some muscles at Hollywood. As for me, No ! I do not wish to read this again.
Three chapters in the life of a race of fiercely independant quasi-human characters named the Borribles. They are very close to being immortal if not carried off by the law ( which they call woolies by the way !) and live their lives in the backyards of the so called civilized society. A brief run down on the stories can be done as :
The Borribles : My pick among all the three tales. It is grim,dark, bloody, battered and has more bruises than a schoolyard fight. The central thread is the classic tale of quest to wrestle back lost glory. A ragatag bunch of rookies are chosen and so begins a fight that gets bloodier by the page. A well summed up sketch of courage,loyalty,honor,deciet and friendship among senseless violence. What captured my interest was this simple line : If you are my friend, follow me around the bend.
The Borribles Go For Broke : The central plot line is more of a seen-it-before one and there is a fair bit of melodrama here which while not outrightly odd still serves as a deterrant. The adventure part remains but somehow it does not end up being as gallant as its predecessor. There is also an effort to make this tale more heroine centric which derails somewhere along the way and it obstainately remains male oriented a tale.
Across The Dark Metropolis : The largest story of them all and pretty much was the most boring one for me. There was a quest at its heart which was so outrageously dumb that I do not want to mention it here. This story is also the most action packed one of the lot but somehow failed to arouse any interest in me. There was also the character named Sydney and every time she uttered something I felt like listening to a piece of chalk being scratched over the writing board !
I give this book four stars for the imagination used to dream up the ambience and history of the characters( both the protagonists & the antagonists ), the exceptionally brilliant descriptions of London, the grim and dark tone that permeates throughout the tales and not to forget the dialog too. This would be a good children's book for it is choke full of ideology of the heroic kind and some action sequences that can flex some muscles at Hollywood. As for me, No ! I do not wish to read this again.
nwhyte's review
3.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1832610.html
The subversive trilogy about Borribles, children who have grown pointy ears and live in a gritty subculture of London; less supernatural than Neverwhere, more urban and poorer than Bevis, but sharing some context with both of those, and apparently an inspiration to China Miéville.
The first book, The Borribles, is a direct attack on Elisabeth Beresford's Womble novels. Fighting off incursion by the evil rat-like Rumbles, a crack team of Borribles sets off to assassinate the Rumble leadership, Vulgarian, Napoleon Boot, Chalotte, Sydney, Bingo, Stonks, Torreycanyon, and Orococco. On the way they encounter the evil Dewdrop and his son, who are a direct parody of Steptoe and Son. I remember when first reading the book being rather stunned at the bleak ending, with several of our heroes facing certain doom at the hands of the Wendles, a fascist Borrible tribe who live under Wandsworth.
In The Borribles go for Broke, our heroes challenge both the grownup police of the Special Borrible Group and the leadership of the Wendles, for a visually memorable and violent climax in a subterranean tunnel of stinking mud. And in the third book, The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis, they fight an epic battle with the Special Borrible Group and its hired auxiliary force of dwarves.
It's subversive stuff - unapologetically violent and opposed to the social order; and extolling the virtues of loyalty to your friends rather than to those who tell you that they deserve you respect. But at the same time it's a rather cosy anarchism; no drugs (beer is drunk by Borribles, but only in the second books and not to excess, and there are adult alcoholics), no sex, and a rather cuddly take on race. It's also rather noticeable that Dewdrop's son is mocked for his learning disabilities, the Rumbles for their speech defects, and the evil dwarves are just evil. So I'm afraid the trilogy didn't quite live up to my memories of it.
The subversive trilogy about Borribles, children who have grown pointy ears and live in a gritty subculture of London; less supernatural than Neverwhere, more urban and poorer than Bevis, but sharing some context with both of those, and apparently an inspiration to China Miéville.
The first book, The Borribles, is a direct attack on Elisabeth Beresford's Womble novels. Fighting off incursion by the evil rat-like Rumbles, a crack team of Borribles sets off to assassinate the Rumble leadership, Vulgarian, Napoleon Boot, Chalotte, Sydney, Bingo, Stonks, Torreycanyon, and Orococco. On the way they encounter the evil Dewdrop and his son, who are a direct parody of Steptoe and Son. I remember when first reading the book being rather stunned at the bleak ending, with several of our heroes facing certain doom at the hands of the Wendles, a fascist Borrible tribe who live under Wandsworth.
In The Borribles go for Broke, our heroes challenge both the grownup police of the Special Borrible Group and the leadership of the Wendles, for a visually memorable and violent climax in a subterranean tunnel of stinking mud. And in the third book, The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis, they fight an epic battle with the Special Borrible Group and its hired auxiliary force of dwarves.
It's subversive stuff - unapologetically violent and opposed to the social order; and extolling the virtues of loyalty to your friends rather than to those who tell you that they deserve you respect. But at the same time it's a rather cosy anarchism; no drugs (beer is drunk by Borribles, but only in the second books and not to excess, and there are adult alcoholics), no sex, and a rather cuddly take on race. It's also rather noticeable that Dewdrop's son is mocked for his learning disabilities, the Rumbles for their speech defects, and the evil dwarves are just evil. So I'm afraid the trilogy didn't quite live up to my memories of it.
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