(no subject)

[raven]

Some good friends of mine asked me to go on a podcast to talk about a children's book I love that I didn't actually read when I was a child, on which more when the time comes, and this very delightful experience sent me in the direction of some books I did read as a child. Which is why I just reread - reread? - Arabel and Mortimer, Joan Aiken's series of unhinged tales about Arabel (4) and her raven, Mortimer (age unknown). Mortimer is not a talking raven - the only things he says are "Kaaaark" and "Nevermore!" - but he's very expressive. When he gets upset he sulks in the fridge and when he's bored he eats stairs. This is a problem for the local users of Rumbury Town Tube station, who can't get out when there's no stairs. I say unhinged - in-universe everything is hilariously internally consistent; after a while Arabel's parents get a letter from a lawyer about damages to premises, to wit, stairs, caused by their giant bird, and there's a little debate about whether you can be answerable for the actions of a wild bird, and in the meantime the people of the Tube station decide it must be haunted (because something shadowy and dark is haphazardly clipping the tickets). And it's so funny, especially for adults! The address of this fictional London district is NW3 1/2!

I say maybe reread, because what I may remember from childhood is Aiken reading the stories for Jackanory on CBBC in the early nineties. (That was long, long before it was CBeebies! I'm very old.) Which would mean I am reading it for the first time, and what a treat.

I thought I might as well not go for any kind of theme, and instead just reread books from childhood that I want to. So I have The Magician's Nephew, which was always sneakily my favourite in the series and the one that has lived longest in my memory. (It's a really good book about grief, okay.) And also The Starlight Barking, the 101 Dalmatians sequel that everyone has read, believing they are the only person to have read this truly deranged piece of unDisneyish mysticism. Following that, I don't know. It would be Ballet Shoes if I hadn't reread it after I saw it at the National. Maybe the time has come for the decennial read of Watership Down.

Comments

[ursula]

Oh, I remember liking Arabel and Mortimer! Though Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the one I re-read obsessively.

I liked Magician's Nephew too, though I think for me the idea of traveling through the attics was the central charm.

[raven]

I never read her books for older readers, which I might remedy now, actually. Arabel and Mortimer are just too delightful.

[asakiyume]

I love that you love The Magician's Nephew for how it deals with grief <3

And yes, "the 101 Dalmatians sequel that everyone has read, believing they are the only person to have read this truly deranged piece of unDisneyish mysticism." --I would fall into that category! Except I didn't read it, I had it read to me as an adult when Wakanomori was reading it to our kids.

[raven]

Oh, I do, I do. There's lines in it that came back to at very adult moments in my later life, about how grief wrenches the childhood out of us all. Damn the man for being good at things.

Isn't it so deeply ODD? And I really have met more than one person who trepidatiously explained that they were SURE I wouldn't have heard of it - and somehow we all have heard of it, and been baffled by it.

[asakiyume]

It really is odd! So odd everyone folds it away in a secret cupboard and then is astonished when everyone else has it in theirs, too.

[chestnut_pod]

The image of the pothole lakes in the wood between worlds has really stuck with me, even as almost nothing else has.

[raven]

Yes, absolutely. It's such a powerful image.

[skygiants]

Wonderful direction to go I think. At some point I really should address the raven-shaped hole in my Aiken reading.

[raven]

oh you must, I'm really surprised you haven't! The books are SO funny and weird and delightful, I can't overemphasise how happy they make me.

[raven]

ps. I just learned that it's now actually possible to get the books in an easy convenient way! There are two volumes, Arabel and Mortimer Stories and More Arabel and Mortimer Stories, that collect the dozen or so difficult to find books that were available before. I just mention this, of course.

[kass]

I didn't think I had read that book, but as soon as you mentioned Mortimer's dialogue I realized I must have read it, because that is ringing a bell. How delightful.

[raven]

Truly delightful! And well worth the revisit after all these decades.

[marymac]

I drove my library demented in my early teens trying to get hold of all Joan Aiken's books. So many interlibrary loans!

Arabel and Mortimer have been our school run audio books for a while now, I need to find hard copies.
And because we are in raven territory my two now hopefully address every raven they see as Mortimer. None of them have said Nevermore back yet though.

[raven]

I think the ravens appreciate the good manners, even if their names aren't Mortimer. Ravens do have a very precise sense of their own importance.

[lovelythings]

Good old Watership Down.

[alwaystheocean]

That's so apt about The Starlight Barking. Mind you, I only know it cuz CARA had that experience and made me read it but nevertheless.

Aw, speaking of The Magician's Nephew and grief, have I told you that my mum read me, chapter by chapter, all 7 of the Narnia books? When we started, I already knew The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, so all the points in The Magician's Nephew that connect to it my mum was nudging me to make sure I got it. (I must've been like, between 6 and 9.) So when we got to Jadis, or the wardrobe being made out of the apple tree, or the lamp post, or Diggory being the professor, she was like, nudge nudge, and what does THAT remind you of. And every night that we FINISHED a book, she'd kiss me goodnight, tuck me in, go away, and then come back with the next book (she'd been hiding the box set from me, I didn't even know how many there were till we finished) to tease me but refuse to start it. I can still remember how she'd sort of waggle it at me.

Also I know The Horse and his Boy is a particularly rough one if you're brown but I remember her very carefully pointing out the play on words in the title to me.

I really love those books, I'm so excited you're rereading them and really do want to hear all your thoughts.