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Saturday 1 October 2011

Saturday Rave: The Borrowers Avenged by Mary Norton.

Books come and go. Most often they come and go very quickly, before the library charge kicks in, and that's why my rave today is about The Borrowers Avenged, which I own, and not about one of the other Borrowers books.

It took me a while to get to like The Borrowers. I think it's because there's a melancholy about the books which wasn't what I wanted when I was young.

Once I had read the books two or three times, though, and no longer had to worry quite so much about what might be going to happen, I loved them very much.

The Borrowers aren't people, though they contrive to be quite startlingly human. But then the writing about all the characters is exquisite.

He put the wire-cutter and the chisel into the cat-basket. Mrs Platter added the sandwiches and a bottle of cold tea. 'Would you like a piece of cake?' she asked him. But he did not seem to hear her, so, picking up her coat, she followed him quietly out through the front door.

Was ever a pair of grown ups so utterly real?

Word To Use Today: chisel. This lovely word is from the Old French cisel, and before that from the Latin caesellum, from caedare, to cut.

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