Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Complete Adventures of the Borrowers by Mary Norton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review of The Complete Adventures of the Borrowers

by Mary Norton

by Karen S. Wiesner 

   Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

One of my first forays into fantasy literature was Mary Norton's timeless adventure series about a family of little people living in the walls and floor of an English home. These little beings are called Borrowers because they borrow from the human "beans" who live in the house--borrow in the sense that they never give any of these things back, of course! Even their names were apparently borrowed from human objects. The series had five installments including The Borrowers (1952 but 1953 for the US version), The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961), and The Borrowers Avenged (1982). 

The saga follows the Clock family (consisting of father and mother, Pod and Homily, and their teenage daughter, Arrietty). Their original home was based on the place the author was herself raised, namely The Cedars. Arrietty is fascinated by "Big People" and gets into all sorts of trouble because of it. In the first book, she befriends "the Boy", who eventually delivers a letter to other Borrowers, Arrietty's aunt, uncle, and children who she's heard "emigrated". The Boy gives them dollhouse furniture and other useful things, but the household cook Mrs. Driver and the gardener Crampfurl become suspicious. Forced to flee, the family ends up living in an old boot, and the mysterious, wild Borrower boy Spiller, who's around Arrietty's age, brings them food. Each subsequent installment has the Borrowers trying to find a permanent place to call home, away from those who want to make their existence known to the world (for profit). Beyond being titled alliteratively and even alphabetically, interestingly, with Books 2-5, all the stories are named for what happens at the very end of each title. Specifically, at the end of Book 1, the Borrower family finds themselves "afield"; at the end of 2, they're "afloat"; at the end of 3, they're "aloft"; and at the end of 5, they're at last "avenged".   

The characters and plots are winsome, compelling, and chock-full of old-fashioned fun. While the specified reading age is 8-12, why deny yourself the pleasure of such a magical story filled with the journeys of tiny creatures most of us hoped really existed when we were young?  In 1983, a 700-page omnibus including all five stories was published at a very reasonable price. Included with it was a novelette called Poor Stainless--A New Story About the Borrowers, which was written in 1966 and published posthumously. This was apparently a story Homily told Arrietty, no doubt to scare her into submission. In it, Stainless, a Borrower, got lost. I suspect the plucky, adventurous Arrietty went forth unmoved and unimpeded after hearing it. Despite being written in the 50s, Arrietty was a female empowered! She seemed to realize she might be the last Borrower and couldn't and wouldn't be held back by outdated beliefs that women were the weaker sex. Survival is no respecter of short-sighted and erroneous labels.

As I said, this was my first taste of fantasy novels growing up. Though generally my own family went home (our permanent residence in Wisconsin) before school started each year,  after a summer spent in whatever place my dad was working temporarily, this particular year my brother, sister, and I actually started school in the state we were in (South Dakota that time, I believe). I read the first three Borrowers' installments as school library books while there, but I was only a little more than half through the fourth story when we had to go home. I sought out the book after that, hoping to finish it, but I never quite got back into the series, though I know the gist of how it ended (the title specifically told me they'd be "afloat" and Pod had been working on the hot-air balloon within the story). Until recently, I've never finished Book 4 nor read the final series book that came out much, much later than the others (30 years! As an author myself, that's simply beyond imagining!), nor the novelette. I purchased the boxed set, which had the Stainless short, though the original "short author's note" wasn't included with it. As this series holds a ton of nostalgia for me, in 2026, I did at long last finish Book 4, the novelette, and Book 5, which introduced at least one new Borrower and ended on a satisfying happily ever after for this ingenious little family. 

You might be interested to know that many movies and TV series have been launched with roots that go back to Norton's classic Borrowers Series, as well as a similar series called The Littles, first published in 1967, written by John Peterson, about little people with mouse-like features (tail included) that live in a house with a family called Bigg. As you'll probably guess, I also read that when I was much younger, and enjoyed it, although it's always been The Borrowers that held my heart. Give it a try. I can't imagine you won't be glad you did.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

The Lady of the Shroud

Everybody knows about Bram Stoker’s DRACULA (1897). Few vampire fans, however, much less general readers, are familiar with what might be called Stoker’s “other vampire novel,” THE LADY OF THE SHROUD (1909). Actually (no big spoiler), it’s not a genuine vampire story, but a plot based on a hoax. The hero doesn’t discover the truth until well into the book, though. This novel is an adventure tale with more similarities to THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1894) than DRACULA. A wealthy Englishman unexpectedly leaves his fortune to his world-traveling nephew, Rupert Sent Leger. As a condition of the inheritance, Rupert has to live in a castle in a tiny Balkan country called the Land of the Blue Mountains. The novel follows the typical plot of a Ruritanian romance, in which a dashing foreign hero (English or sometimes American) saves the realm and falls in love with the princess. It's obvious, however, that Stoker also drew on his research for DRACULA in composing this tale.

Like DRACULA, THE LADY OF THE SHROUD has an epistolary narrative structure. It begins with a magazine story about an apparition of a coffin-like boat bearing a woman in a shroud. Most of the book consists of entries from Rupert’s journal, supplemented by letters and other documents. Once settled in the castle, formerly the home of the voivode (ruler) of the country, Rupert receives a visit from a woman of unearthly beauty “wrapped in white graveclothes saturated with water.” In addition to the shroud she wears, other factors such the chill of her skin, her need to be helped over the threshold of his room, and her insistence on fleeing at cockcrow lead him to seriously entertain the possibility that she may be a vampire. During the day he explores an ancient church nearby and finds her in the crypt, lying in a glass-topped coffin like a vampiric Snow White. Because of his many extraordinary experiences in exotic parts of the world, Rupert, like Van Helsing, has an open mind about the preternatural and occult. But unlike any of the characters in DRACULA, Rupert speculates whether the lady, if a vampire, could be redeemed and restored to life. That idea never comes up in the earlier book, where vampires are demonically evil by definition.

The lady turns out to be the voivodin (princess) of the Land of the Blue Mountains, carrying out the vampire masquerade for protection from her enemies. Having fallen into a cataleptic trance (a phenomenon that scholars have often cited as one hypothetical source of vampire beliefs), she had been pronounced dead and interred, a mistake she uses to her advantage. Rupert, of course, saves both the voivodin and her nation, rescuing his beloved and her father from Turkish kidnappers. THE LADY OF THE SHROUD has the distinction of possibly including the first fictional portrayal of aircraft combat, only six years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight.

Although lesser known than DRACULA, this novel and Stoker’s tale of a mummified Egyptian princess trying to return to life, THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS (1903), both hold up well as thrilling stories still worth a read today.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Congo by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Congo by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

In 1980, Crichton wrote another scary book about ancient creatures inhabiting a forgotten world in the dense tropical rainforest of the Congo. The novel Congo starts when an expedition sent there in search of diamond deposits by Earth Resource Technology Services, Inc. (ERTS) is attacked and killed by unknown beats that look like gray gorillas. Instead of diamonds, this team apparently found the (fictional) lost city of Zinj.

Led by the independent and compelling Karen Ross, another expedition is launched to discover the truth. This time, they decide to bring along a female mountain gorilla named Amy, trained to use sign language, and her trainer Peter Elliot, hoping Amy will be able to communicate with the creatures. Ironically, after the book was published, reviewers found Amy's abilities too incredible to believe. Yet Crichton modeled his fictional gorilla after Koko, who'd been on the cover of National Geographic twice at that point and had done interviews on television using sign language. Apparently, she wasn't famous enough at that point to be a realistic example. Go figure.

I found everything about this novel binge-worthy and convincing. The characters, including lovely, funny Amy, were utterly beguiling, smart, and interesting. I truly enjoyed their journey from start to finish, rooting for them in the face of rival competitors also searching and set against a ticking clock--with a nearby volcano threatening to blow and bury the intriguing find under lava and ash for all time.

A bit of an aside, but while researching this review, I discovered that Crichton apparently pitched the idea of producing a "modern-day version of King Solomon's Mines" to a major film company, who bough the rights long before the book was written. Not surprisingly, the author found himself suffering from writer's block in the face of pressure no doubt instigated by the astronomical advance he was given to produce a novel, screenplay, and secure directing rights. Fortunately, he finished the book, which quickly became a bestseller. A year later, he started writing the screenplay, hoping Sean Connery (who starred in Crichton's The Great Train Robbery) would fill the lead role. The film was released in 1995 with neither Crichton or Connery involved. While enjoying a successful box office performance, the film version was ridiculed most notably with Golden Raspberry Award nominations for Worst Picture. While I found the film decent and worth watching, I strongly recommend that you don't judge the book by this movie. The story version itself is not to be missed.

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale of the fantastical variety. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/