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soiseau's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
jason_pym's review against another edition
3.0
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road violates Bagpuss.
‘Down dropped the mouse and his child, turning over and over in the air, the wind whistling through their tin as they plunged to the earth.
‘The struck with a rattling crash on the tin-can slope that overlooked the fires, and the dump leaped and shuddered in their vision as the impact broke their grip on each other’s hands, split their bodies open, and flung them violently apart. The scattered pieces of the mouse and his child lay on the path where once the frog had told their fortune, and they saw and heard no more.
‘Below them winked red embers through the broken skeletons of umbrellas and the carcasses of old shoes, while flames flew up in wrecked birdcages, singing where silence long had been. Empty bottles and dead lightbulbs popped dully, and a stench rose with the drifting smoke and ashes. On the tracks beyond the dump a freight train whistled. The wind sighed over the rubbish mountains.’
I have very mixed feelings about this book. Firstly, it is a truly awful children’s book that I would never inflict on any child. But then it is so dark and weird and takes so many unexpected turns that it is fascinating and I will definitely read it again.
The story centres around a father and son, two clockwork mice bound eternally like Siamese twins, that dance in tortured circles when a giant key is inserted into the father’s back. They start off in the warmth and happiness of the toyshop, amongst their friends is an elephant that the mouse child wants to adopt as his mother. This longing is so overwhelming that he starts to cry, his wails scaring the cat, who then knocks a vase onto them, mangling their bodies so that they are thrown into the rubbish bin. So begins their descent into darkness, a long journey where many of their friends are smashed and battered, and they are relentlessly pursued by the mob boss Manny Rat, who makes sentient clockwork toys his slaves (and for those who don’t bend to his will, he recycles their clockwork inner organs).
There is a lot of death and murder. Often repeated is an animal being eaten by another animal, making a smug remark, only to be eaten itself by a third animal. And, while not strictly cannibalism, making all the animals talking, sentient creatures means that when a badger eats a talking rat, or an owl eats a talking weasel, it does feel as disturbing as cannibalism. The shrews, after capturing the mouse and his child and the Frog, talk about eating mice and frogs, and refer to their captives as ‘rations.’ ‘…a little group of captive wood mice shuffled their feet and wept.’
‘The weasels flowed like hungry shadows down into the hollow, and once among the shrews, struck right and left with lightning swiftness, smiling pleasantly with the blood of both armies dripping from their jaws. Not a single shrew escaped. When the weasels had satisfied their thirst for blood they bounded away, leaving behind them heaps of tiny corpses scattered on the snow.
‘”This is a nice territory,” said the female. “It’s the nicest we’ve had yet. I’d kind of like to settle down here for a while.”
‘”It’s not bad,” said her mate. “Not a bad little territory at all. I could see use making a home here.” They nuzzled each other affectionately as they ran, and their heads were so close together that when the horned owl swooped down out of the moonlight his talons pierced both brains at once.’
Sleep tight, kids!
Here’s some of the weird, dark, yet fascinating characters and ideas that I can’t decide if I love or hate:
The aim is for the mice to become self-winding (independent, self-reliant) and live in the dolls house (a stable, safe, warm, domestic environment) with their friends (and have a proper family, with the elephant as mother and seal as sister). The vast majority of the book is however a hellish landscape of filth, mud and rotting decay, in pursuit of this dream which seems ever more distant as the friends they hold dear are sadistically exploited and broken. And the mouse and his son are the ones who are the most frequently described as being physically damaged. Once eventually found, their dreamed of dollhouse has, inevitably, been desecrated, ruined by fire it is used as ‘a trysting place for young rat lovers.’
There is Frog, a snake-oil salesman who lives in an old glove and makes accurate prophesies, talks in vague, high sounding pronouncements. He’s great.
Militant shrews. Also great.
The tabloid bluejay reporter, who screams headlines of whatever is happening alongside sports results for roaches versus dung beetles, just to show the meaningless banality of it all. ‘Avid for disaster and eager for a headline, he pursued his story at top speed, and was in time to see the mouse and his child fall. The bluejay’s shadow glided over the child’s broken face as the reporter circled low…’
C. Serpentina, the philosopher snapping turtle, who wrote the experimental play The Last Visible Dog. This title refers to the Bonzo Dog dogfood label, where an image of a dog holding a can is repeated within itself over and over. ‘The Last Visible Dog’ recurs throughout the book, the Mouse sees it as a metaphor for persistence, but clearly this is just another take on the nihilistic message of the book: The meaninglessness of existence as we repeat what has gone before in facsimiles of ever deteriorating quality, just like the clockwork toys themselves. Or, for that matter, people.
What a great message for children: Best top yourselves now kids! It’s all downhill from here ;)
The Caws of Art theatre troupe (‘caws’ because two of the players are crows).
Manny Rat, a truly nasty, slimy villain. ‘Manny Rat clutched desperately at sanity, and with a sigh gave himself again to evil… [He] giggled as he imagined the mouse and his child, charred spectres, treading endlessly the ashes of their territory.’
Dark humour. Sometimes the book made me laugh out loud. Like this bit, when the shrews capture the Frog: ‘“Who turned you in anyhow?” “Destiny,” said Frog. “You can’t trust anybody,” said the corporal.’
And here’s another one: ‘Two passing tadpoles swam between him and the Bonzo can where they encountered a water snake. “This way please,” said the snake, and swallowed them.
‘”It looks bad,” said one of the tadpoles as the disappeared down the snake’s throat.
‘”You never know,” said the other. “If we can just keep get through this, maybe everything will be all right.”’
It reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, in that it is a ‘children’s classic’ in America but not any other English speaking country, and when you actually come to read it as an adult the story is really bizarre. This story also seems strange coming from Hoban who also wrote the Frances picture books, which are charming, saccharine domestic stories about a badger and her family.
Three stars for The Mouse and his Child, because I can’t decide if this is a five star aberration or one star travesty.
‘Down dropped the mouse and his child, turning over and over in the air, the wind whistling through their tin as they plunged to the earth.
‘The struck with a rattling crash on the tin-can slope that overlooked the fires, and the dump leaped and shuddered in their vision as the impact broke their grip on each other’s hands, split their bodies open, and flung them violently apart. The scattered pieces of the mouse and his child lay on the path where once the frog had told their fortune, and they saw and heard no more.
‘Below them winked red embers through the broken skeletons of umbrellas and the carcasses of old shoes, while flames flew up in wrecked birdcages, singing where silence long had been. Empty bottles and dead lightbulbs popped dully, and a stench rose with the drifting smoke and ashes. On the tracks beyond the dump a freight train whistled. The wind sighed over the rubbish mountains.’
I have very mixed feelings about this book. Firstly, it is a truly awful children’s book that I would never inflict on any child. But then it is so dark and weird and takes so many unexpected turns that it is fascinating and I will definitely read it again.
The story centres around a father and son, two clockwork mice bound eternally like Siamese twins, that dance in tortured circles when a giant key is inserted into the father’s back. They start off in the warmth and happiness of the toyshop, amongst their friends is an elephant that the mouse child wants to adopt as his mother. This longing is so overwhelming that he starts to cry, his wails scaring the cat, who then knocks a vase onto them, mangling their bodies so that they are thrown into the rubbish bin. So begins their descent into darkness, a long journey where many of their friends are smashed and battered, and they are relentlessly pursued by the mob boss Manny Rat, who makes sentient clockwork toys his slaves (and for those who don’t bend to his will, he recycles their clockwork inner organs).
There is a lot of death and murder. Often repeated is an animal being eaten by another animal, making a smug remark, only to be eaten itself by a third animal. And, while not strictly cannibalism, making all the animals talking, sentient creatures means that when a badger eats a talking rat, or an owl eats a talking weasel, it does feel as disturbing as cannibalism. The shrews, after capturing the mouse and his child and the Frog, talk about eating mice and frogs, and refer to their captives as ‘rations.’ ‘…a little group of captive wood mice shuffled their feet and wept.’
‘The weasels flowed like hungry shadows down into the hollow, and once among the shrews, struck right and left with lightning swiftness, smiling pleasantly with the blood of both armies dripping from their jaws. Not a single shrew escaped. When the weasels had satisfied their thirst for blood they bounded away, leaving behind them heaps of tiny corpses scattered on the snow.
‘”This is a nice territory,” said the female. “It’s the nicest we’ve had yet. I’d kind of like to settle down here for a while.”
‘”It’s not bad,” said her mate. “Not a bad little territory at all. I could see use making a home here.” They nuzzled each other affectionately as they ran, and their heads were so close together that when the horned owl swooped down out of the moonlight his talons pierced both brains at once.’
Sleep tight, kids!
Here’s some of the weird, dark, yet fascinating characters and ideas that I can’t decide if I love or hate:
The aim is for the mice to become self-winding (independent, self-reliant) and live in the dolls house (a stable, safe, warm, domestic environment) with their friends (and have a proper family, with the elephant as mother and seal as sister). The vast majority of the book is however a hellish landscape of filth, mud and rotting decay, in pursuit of this dream which seems ever more distant as the friends they hold dear are sadistically exploited and broken. And the mouse and his son are the ones who are the most frequently described as being physically damaged. Once eventually found, their dreamed of dollhouse has, inevitably, been desecrated, ruined by fire it is used as ‘a trysting place for young rat lovers.’
There is Frog, a snake-oil salesman who lives in an old glove and makes accurate prophesies, talks in vague, high sounding pronouncements. He’s great.
Militant shrews. Also great.
The tabloid bluejay reporter, who screams headlines of whatever is happening alongside sports results for roaches versus dung beetles, just to show the meaningless banality of it all. ‘Avid for disaster and eager for a headline, he pursued his story at top speed, and was in time to see the mouse and his child fall. The bluejay’s shadow glided over the child’s broken face as the reporter circled low…’
C. Serpentina, the philosopher snapping turtle, who wrote the experimental play The Last Visible Dog. This title refers to the Bonzo Dog dogfood label, where an image of a dog holding a can is repeated within itself over and over. ‘The Last Visible Dog’ recurs throughout the book, the Mouse sees it as a metaphor for persistence, but clearly this is just another take on the nihilistic message of the book: The meaninglessness of existence as we repeat what has gone before in facsimiles of ever deteriorating quality, just like the clockwork toys themselves. Or, for that matter, people.
What a great message for children: Best top yourselves now kids! It’s all downhill from here ;)
The Caws of Art theatre troupe (‘caws’ because two of the players are crows).
Manny Rat, a truly nasty, slimy villain. ‘Manny Rat clutched desperately at sanity, and with a sigh gave himself again to evil… [He] giggled as he imagined the mouse and his child, charred spectres, treading endlessly the ashes of their territory.’
Dark humour. Sometimes the book made me laugh out loud. Like this bit, when the shrews capture the Frog: ‘“Who turned you in anyhow?” “Destiny,” said Frog. “You can’t trust anybody,” said the corporal.’
And here’s another one: ‘Two passing tadpoles swam between him and the Bonzo can where they encountered a water snake. “This way please,” said the snake, and swallowed them.
‘”It looks bad,” said one of the tadpoles as the disappeared down the snake’s throat.
‘”You never know,” said the other. “If we can just keep get through this, maybe everything will be all right.”’
It reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, in that it is a ‘children’s classic’ in America but not any other English speaking country, and when you actually come to read it as an adult the story is really bizarre. This story also seems strange coming from Hoban who also wrote the Frances picture books, which are charming, saccharine domestic stories about a badger and her family.
Three stars for The Mouse and his Child, because I can’t decide if this is a five star aberration or one star travesty.
mangopits's review against another edition
just knew a fascist Zionist must have written this
saroz162's review against another edition
2.0
Russell Hoban is one of those authors I probably haven't given enough of a chance. I've read one book of his I really loved (Amaryllis Night and Day), one I did not get on with at all (The Medusa Frequency), and bits and pieces of a third which, while very, very interesting, would feel more like an intellectual exercise than an entertainment no matter who was writing it (Riddley Walker). Over all of them looms the shadow of The Mouse and His Child, an existentialist children's fantasy that I first encountered as an unforgettably dark and uncompromising cartoon before rediscovering it as an even darker and more uncompromising novel.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty clear to me, at this point, that Hoban must have been an exceptionally smart man, and possessed of an exceptional mind to be able to think up even that handful of stories which - regardless of whether I liked them or not - are all pretty startlingly varied and original pieces of writing. Based on that one fact, you'd think it would be clear that I should read more of his work. Yet as I sat re-reading The Mouse and His Child, it occurred to me that there is an increasingly clear separation in my mind between great writers and great storytellers. For a long time, I've thought that there are many great storytellers - L. Frank Baum, for instance, being a wonderful example within the children's literature genre - who are not particularly great writers. They don't write overly memorable prose and may even have a tin ear for dialogue, but their sheer ability to carry you along in a story renders them able to tell you, sometimes, roughly the same story again and again and again, and you never get bored. Now I'm starting to think that the opposite can be true: there are great writers in the world, commanders of language, theme and style, who are - confoundingly - so smart or so full of a need to communicate an idea that it gets in the way of telling an entertaining story. I say this, specifically, because all the way through The Mouse and His Child I admired Hoban's actual writing. He has a really ingenious way of putting across a fairly sideways point of view in a deceptively straightforward way. There are some incredibly vivid images in the story, both terrifying and beautiful, and the questions Hoban asks of the reader are vivid enough to have stuck with me more than twenty years. There's just one problem.
I did not enjoy reading this book. I really, really did not enjoy reading this book.
A large part of that, admittedly, is the tone. This is, for a large portion of its proceedings, a very grim children's story. It is about suffering, pain, loss of family, pursuit, torture, and sudden death. Perhaps more importantly, the quest for individual identity - "self-winding" - that serves as the book's focus is so startlingly different from other children's literature, so reflective and melancholy, as to actually be haunting. This is heavy, heady stuff. You can tell - palpably - that it is written by someone who fought in war. Sometimes, it just feels relentless.
Some of the novel's eccentricities, though, come off like the favored children of a first-time novelist, and those can just become annoying. I can't for the life of me figure out, for instance, why Hoban stops the story dead for a prolonged satire of Waiting for Godot, or why the Muskrat's peculiar "much-and-little" algebraic equations (cog plus key equals winding!) are drummed quite so hard into the dialogue of the second half of the book. The Last Visible Dog symbolism, while certainly effective, also feels incredibly heavy-handed, especially in the undersea sequence. It's all there to support the existentialist theme - in fact, it's impossible to understand these elements any other way - but in an already very depressing story, that uncomfortable feeling that you are being lectured at by someone who desperately wants you to understand his message is just about enough to make me put the book down and walk away. And I did. Several times.
So where does that leave me with The Mouse and His Child? I'm really not sure. I respect it, and more, I find myself respecting Hoban for his unique vision. I find it a nearly impossible book to recommend, though. Unlike many readers, I wouldn't call it "magical." That's too light, too pleasant, too sweet. I would call it a very original work that also happens to be overwhelmingly sad and wistful. Hoban's world is not a world I want to revisit, probably ever again. I already know it's a world I can't forget.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty clear to me, at this point, that Hoban must have been an exceptionally smart man, and possessed of an exceptional mind to be able to think up even that handful of stories which - regardless of whether I liked them or not - are all pretty startlingly varied and original pieces of writing. Based on that one fact, you'd think it would be clear that I should read more of his work. Yet as I sat re-reading The Mouse and His Child, it occurred to me that there is an increasingly clear separation in my mind between great writers and great storytellers. For a long time, I've thought that there are many great storytellers - L. Frank Baum, for instance, being a wonderful example within the children's literature genre - who are not particularly great writers. They don't write overly memorable prose and may even have a tin ear for dialogue, but their sheer ability to carry you along in a story renders them able to tell you, sometimes, roughly the same story again and again and again, and you never get bored. Now I'm starting to think that the opposite can be true: there are great writers in the world, commanders of language, theme and style, who are - confoundingly - so smart or so full of a need to communicate an idea that it gets in the way of telling an entertaining story. I say this, specifically, because all the way through The Mouse and His Child I admired Hoban's actual writing. He has a really ingenious way of putting across a fairly sideways point of view in a deceptively straightforward way. There are some incredibly vivid images in the story, both terrifying and beautiful, and the questions Hoban asks of the reader are vivid enough to have stuck with me more than twenty years. There's just one problem.
I did not enjoy reading this book. I really, really did not enjoy reading this book.
A large part of that, admittedly, is the tone. This is, for a large portion of its proceedings, a very grim children's story. It is about suffering, pain, loss of family, pursuit, torture, and sudden death. Perhaps more importantly, the quest for individual identity - "self-winding" - that serves as the book's focus is so startlingly different from other children's literature, so reflective and melancholy, as to actually be haunting. This is heavy, heady stuff. You can tell - palpably - that it is written by someone who fought in war. Sometimes, it just feels relentless.
Some of the novel's eccentricities, though, come off like the favored children of a first-time novelist, and those can just become annoying. I can't for the life of me figure out, for instance, why Hoban stops the story dead for a prolonged satire of Waiting for Godot, or why the Muskrat's peculiar "much-and-little" algebraic equations (cog plus key equals winding!) are drummed quite so hard into the dialogue of the second half of the book. The Last Visible Dog symbolism, while certainly effective, also feels incredibly heavy-handed, especially in the undersea sequence. It's all there to support the existentialist theme - in fact, it's impossible to understand these elements any other way - but in an already very depressing story, that uncomfortable feeling that you are being lectured at by someone who desperately wants you to understand his message is just about enough to make me put the book down and walk away. And I did. Several times.
So where does that leave me with The Mouse and His Child? I'm really not sure. I respect it, and more, I find myself respecting Hoban for his unique vision. I find it a nearly impossible book to recommend, though. Unlike many readers, I wouldn't call it "magical." That's too light, too pleasant, too sweet. I would call it a very original work that also happens to be overwhelmingly sad and wistful. Hoban's world is not a world I want to revisit, probably ever again. I already know it's a world I can't forget.
emjay2021's review against another edition
I have clear memories of certain scenes in this book--the infinity dog food tin!--but overall what I remember is an overall feeling of wistfulness and melancholy. Odd for a children's book; I think I was ten when I read it, and although I don't actually think it was intended for children, it made a great impression on me. I would need to reread it to really review or rate it properly, but I came across a reference to it today and it jogged my memory.
irreverentreader's review against another edition
4.0
This is a book that I will undoubtedly go back to in the future--because I think it's one that takes some time to digest. I wish I had read it at a different point in my year, when I wasn't so stressed and had the ability to focus.
Because this is a "children's" book that does require focus. I would put this in the same camp as Peter Pan and A Series of Unfortunate Events. This book is DARK. It does not shy away for a minute about the brutalities of life: loss, terror, death, slow decay, you name it. And yet, I think it speaks about these topics with a real earnestness that makes it meaningful for readers of all ages. Although parents may shy away from such books for their kids, these were the type of books I most connected to as a kid--they didn't try to hide the ugly parts of the world, you felt like you were observing life the way it was and learning something from it: resilience, determination, persistence.
I do think there were a few things that could have used a little spiffying up. As a few other reviewers said, the flow of the storytelling could have been polished, and the whole absurdist/existentialism taken down a notch or two, but yet it still worked--at least for me, as an adult. My only other complaint is that I wish we would have spent more time in the toy store at the beginning because that would have made the Elephant and Seal characters more interesting, had we gotten to know them better.
I love anthropomorphic tales, and I love all matters of grey characters, and this book has plenty of both. I look forward to my eventual return to this book and to see what nuances I pick up the second time around.
Because this is a "children's" book that does require focus. I would put this in the same camp as Peter Pan and A Series of Unfortunate Events. This book is DARK. It does not shy away for a minute about the brutalities of life: loss, terror, death, slow decay, you name it. And yet, I think it speaks about these topics with a real earnestness that makes it meaningful for readers of all ages. Although parents may shy away from such books for their kids, these were the type of books I most connected to as a kid--they didn't try to hide the ugly parts of the world, you felt like you were observing life the way it was and learning something from it: resilience, determination, persistence.
I do think there were a few things that could have used a little spiffying up. As a few other reviewers said, the flow of the storytelling could have been polished, and the whole absurdist/existentialism taken down a notch or two, but yet it still worked--at least for me, as an adult. My only other complaint is that I wish we would have spent more time in the toy store at the beginning because that would have made the Elephant and Seal characters more interesting, had we gotten to know them better.
I love anthropomorphic tales, and I love all matters of grey characters, and this book has plenty of both. I look forward to my eventual return to this book and to see what nuances I pick up the second time around.
fallingletters's review against another edition
2.0
This /sounds/ like something I would like, but I found it mostly dull and actually a bit violent. I like a dark children's story, but this wasn't really to my taste.
ebony_w's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
cdhotwing's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
ljjohnson8's review
3.0
So not a children's book unless you think a dark existential fable is fit for the young'uns. Hoban's creation is brilliant and unusual, and full of symbolism and depth. It asks no easier questions than what is the meaning/reason for life and is light possible without dark? I won't shake this one any time soon.