elizabethd 's review for:

The Mouse and His Child by David Small, Russell Hoban

5.0

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This is my new favorite book of all time. It reads as an adventure story - a wind-up toy (a father and son mouse) are purchased from a toy store, and journey through families and Christmases, until they are finally old and broken and end up in a dump where an enterprising but evil rat rebuilds wind-up toys as his personal army of laborers. The son longs for home, for a mother, for a sense of belonging somewhere (his 'territory') and that is his primary directive throughout the story - to achieve that. The father, on the other hand, is cynical and loses hope again and again. It is the son's optimism that keeps them going. As a unit, they represent the dual motivations in any one human being. The nature of their being - being wind-up toys reliant on others to wind them up to make them go, is an obvious allegory to mankind's reliance on fate, economies, war, etc to make any progress in life. It is a statement to our vulnerabilities, or utter helplessness and lack of any real control of our lives. Indeed, each bit of their journey is instigated by an outside force rather than by their own doing. It is only their hope that keeps them alive as they wait for the next thing to occur. This book came into my life at an interesting time - in the midst of Trump and Brexit - when I think most of us feel like wind-up toys, victims to forces greater than ourselves and out of our control. The story does end on a high note, the son's hope is rewarded, friends are reunited and a home/territory is indeed established. As such, the story leaves one with a sense of positive hope alongside an intense awareness of our own fragility.