King Crow by Michael Stewart

There's a lot going on in Paul's world, and there's even more going on in his head. Paul's home life is distinctly suboptimal: he's bullied, his mother neglects him and her unsettled lifestyle sees him continually moving from house to house and school to school on the manky fringes of Manchester. As a result, he's retreated into ornithology and fantasy and we're treated to some fine nature writing and some fantastic riffs about the inherent stupidity of penguins, why giant pandas really don't deserve to be saved and the contribution vultures make to their eco-system. The direct staccato voice and no-nonsense language visible in that plot summary remain throughout.

Combined with Paul's frequently nonsensical world view they provide continual amusement and just the right level of bemusment. Paul may be troubled, and he may take us to some dark places, but King Crow remains a light, beguiling read."That doesn't really matter. Then we ran away, then we stole a car and knocked Andy down.

All I need to add for myself is that the narrator is called Paul Cooper and he's quite strange – but then you've probably guessed that.  Or at least it does for that first two-thirds of the book, until Paul offloads a very big surprise. I'm wary of saying more about this revelation, because to do so would be to spoil it. Suffice to say, it is a big one. It completely wrong-footed me. It made me go back to the beginning and entirely changed my view of what had been happening. Perhaps I'd been reading naively, but that shouldn't draw away any praise of Michael Stewart's skill. It was an unsettling and impressive moment.

The car really smashed into him and there was blood everywhere. I wouldn't say he was alright. I'd say he was dead. That would explain Dave's look. Then we had a car chase. I tried to shoot Dave. Then we walked into Kendal. Then we nicked a clown, went to a squat party, took lots of drugs and I ended up here and had sex for the first time ever with Becky, who is lovely."Later on, he gives an even more succinct version: "Apart from killing a man and one or two little hiccups, this has been a really successful trip."
The trouble is that, after dropping us over this steep edge, Stewart never quite manages to get back to the same heights. I still enjoyed the final third of the book. Paul remains amiable and intriguing and there's still plenty of the madcap action that makes the early pages so enjoyable. But the narrative disintegrates along with Paul's increasingly damaged psyche. It's looser and flatter and never quite as compelling. To go back to that original metaphor, it becomes Open Season rather than The Decline Of British Sea Power. Still good. Still wonderfully strange. But not a masterpiece.

Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday

Today would have been Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday had he not died at the age of 74 in 1990. This year also marks the birthday of one of his most beloved books, "James and the Giant Peach," which was published in the United States 50 years ago. (Interestingly, it wasn’t published in Britain, Mr. Dahl’s home until six years later.)

 

"James and the Giant Peach," which was adapted into an animated film in 1996 (featuring Susan Sarandon, in an especially cunning casting move, as Miss Spider), has sold over 12 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages. The story of James Henry Trotter, whose parents are viciously devoured by a rhinoceros on the streets of London and who then moves in with two cruel aunts only to relocate to a giant peach, has entertained generations of children with its parable of fantasy and escape.

 

Mr. Dahl was intimate with the particulars of cruel childhood through personal experience, the details of which he laid out in "Boy," his memoir of early life. The book rivals George Orwell’s celebrated essay, "Such, Such Were the Joys," in its depiction of the arbitrary ruthlessness of English boarding school life. An episode involving the removal of his adenoids in Norway is no more pleasant.

Matters work out much more cheerfully for James Henry Trotter, who, at the end of "James and the Giant Peach," is welcomed as a hero by the Mayor of New York. Similar satisfactions await the protagonists of Mr. Dahl’s other children’s books, even as a harsher fate is delivered to the Veruca Salts of the world.