Monthly Archives: August 2008
Barking Mad: Dodie Smith’s Hundred and One Dalmations
One Hundred and One Dalmations (1956) by Dodie Smith is a curious there and back again tale (or should that be tail?) which is somewhat more saccharine than the Disney film (or at least my memories of it). When Cruella … Continue reading
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One small village: Asterix’s village
One thing that has puzzled me for ages is the opening of the Asterix books. In each on there is a paragraph about the only Gaulish village being surrounded by four Roman camps. Is this an exaggeration of the Resistance … Continue reading
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Tintin and the issue of race
Tintin in the Congo is the most difficult of Hergé’s Tintin strips. It first appeared in 1930 in the “Petit Vingtiéme”, the newspaper for which he worked , and in book form during 1931. His manager, the Abbé Norbert Wallez, … Continue reading
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Austere Borrowing: Mary Norton in the Austerity Years.
The Borrowers, originally published in 1952, was Mary Norton’s next and best known foray into fantasy after the Bedknobs and Broomsticks collection. What is remarkable about the Borrowers is that they do not show the distinctly paranoid society of Bedknobs … Continue reading
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Neal Stephenson’s in time with Anathem
Stephen Levy over at Wired has this great piece on the new Neal Stephenson novel, Anathem, which disusses the Long Now foundation, 10000 year clock and time.
The Horror, the Horror: Harry Potter and the Dementors
The Dementors in the Harry Potter series conjure up images of the Ringwraiths in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Cowled and deadly creatures to be avoided, they conjure up basic fears of the protagonists. Whilst Tolkien’s wraiths are symbols of … Continue reading
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Reasoning with Witchfinders
In a piece on the arrival of the Right Rev Gene Robinson in England for the Lambeth conference and his subsequent heckling during his sermon, Gareth Maclean comments: ‘What, I found myself wondering when the Right Rev Gene Robinson was … Continue reading
Death of Pauline Baynes
Paulie Baynes, who provided the classic illustrations for C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, died on 1 August. (Independent obituary).
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At a loose end: Michael Bond’s Paddington: Here and Now
I’ve just finished the latest Paddington Bear book and it has been a gas. Paddington: Here and Now marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Bear from darkest Peru’s appearance at Paddington station. Needless to say, he finds himself frequently at … Continue reading
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William Croft Dickinson
A couple of weeks ago, I read Borrobil but couldn’t see anything on the author with the Wikipedia page being deleted. I also tried the continuum encyclopedia and the Oxford companion but no beans. I should have known that the … Continue reading