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 de Vil steals 15 puppies from the Dearlys’ dogs, Pongo and Missis Pongo, and takes [...]
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 or part of general French culture.
Reading the post war literature chapter in Kay, Cave [...]
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, was a card carrying fascist supporter, hence the hatchet job on the Communist Revolution in Russia [...]
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 and Broomsticks but one where the society of normal people is one where they need [...]
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.
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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 avarice and lust for power in their search for the One Ring, Rowling’s fears are [...]
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 heckled with calls of “Heretic!” and “Repent!”, happened to the Enlightenment? Two hundred years after Thomas [...]
Paulie Baynes, who provided the classic illustrations for C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, died on 1 August. (Independent obituary).
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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 a loose end whilst taking a humorously, gentle look at English life from the outside. [...]
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 essential Encyclopedia of Fantasy would contain a short article.
Richard Dalbey’s article gives his dates [...]