Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Borrible Trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti Книга: Michael De Larrabeiti «The Borribles Trilogy» This volume contains a trilogy on the Borribles, a tale of several street-wise Peter Pan types, setting out on three very different but related missions across the darker side of London. A fantasy adventure set against the backdrop of a weirdly different urban landscape. Издательство: "Macmillan Publishers" (2002) Michael de Larrabeiti. ; Hal Duncan; New Weird movement. Michael de Larrabeiti (18 August 1934 – 18 April 2008) was an English novelist and travel writer. He is best known for writing The Borrible Trilogy , [ 1 ] which has been cited as an influence by writers in the New Weird movement. [ 2 ] Contents. Early life. One of five children, de Larrabeiti was born in St Thomas' Hospital and was mostly brought up in Battersea, South London. His mother was of Irish descent and lived most of her life in the Lavender Hill area of London; his father was a Basque from Bilbao and was often absent. In 1939 he was evacuated to Arundel in West Sussex, before returning to London in 1940, only to be evacuated again to Askern, a mining village near Doncaster in Yorkshire, in the winter. At the end of the Second World War he returned to London and, after failing the eleven plus, was educated at Clapham Central Secondary School. The teachers he had here, often men who had returned from fighting in the war determined to make a better world, were a great influence on de Larrabeiti, something he would later fictionalise in Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite . Youth. After leaving school at sixteen, de Larrabeiti initially worked as a librarian at a public library on Magdalen Road in Earlsfield, south London. In 1952 he began attending Battersea Polytechnic with a view towards taking A-Levels and attending university. This ambition took nine years to fulfill, mainly because of economic reasons. During these period de Larrabeiti worked at many things, initially as a cinema projectionist in a 3D cinema in Festival Gardens, Battersea Park during the Festival of Britain. His experiences in the Gardens are recorded in A Rose Beyond the Thames . He later worked as a cameraman in documentary films and as a travel guide in France and Morocco. In 1959 he fell in with a group of Provençal shepherds and went with them on the transhumance, herding three thousand sheep from their winter pasture to summer pasture in the French Alps. He then taught English in Casablanca, and in 1961 was the photographer on Oxford University's Marco Polo Expedition, travelling four months overland on a motorcycle and sidecar with Stanley Johnson and Tim Severin to Afghanistan and India. Between 1961 and 1965 he read French and English at Trinity College Dublin, from where he won a scholarship to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he studied in 1965-66; he later began a DPhil at Keble College, Oxford which he later abandoned to take up full-time writing. Writing career. De Larrabeiti continued to work in the travel and film businesses and, later, as a freelance contributor to the Sunday Times travel section, for which he wrote acclaimed travel essays. His books have also been critically well-received, with recent work being long-listed for the Booker Prize. 2006 saw the publication of his most recent novel, Princess Diana's Revenge ; a collection of memoirs entitled Spots of Time was published in early 2007. His 1992 novel Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite is also set to be republished, after having been out of print for over ten years. The Borrible Trilogy : The Borribles, The Borribles Go for Broke, Across the Dark Metropolis. There are now quite a few novels in the SF and Fantasy pantheon claiming the status of classic, and some of them actually deserve that accolade. One of these latter novels is The Borribles . Michael de Larrabeiti had exactly the right upbringing to be an author: born in Battersea, his father was a Basque, and after leaving school he worked in film, travelled, travelled some more in exotic places, then read French and English in Dublin and, later, in Oxford. Eventually he gave all this up to devote himself to writing. If you haven't yet read The Borribles , you are missing not just a classic but an all-time classic. This trilogy of books, published here in one volume, relates the mud-spattered, hilarious, sad, gritty, exciting and altogether surreal tales of those infamous London creatures the Borribles. A Borrible is a child. sort of. with pointy ears and a suspicious disposition, who lives thieving and free-wheeling in all the hidden, forgotten and filthy places of London. Borribles are not grown-up but nonetheless they live forever, unless, that is, they are caught by Borrible-snatchers or members of the SBG--the Special Borrible Group of the Metropolitan Police Force. Clipping the ears of a Borrible dooms them to adulthood and a life of 9-5 drudgery. Borribles live for freedom, for exultant theft and freebootery, for the joy of inhabiting the streets at night. There are many Borrible tribes all over the capital city, each with their own characteristics: devious, pollution-hardened Wendles of Wandsworth, Indian Borribles, punk Borribles and even Rastafarian Borribles. The plots all involve struggle, chase, escape and conflict. In book one the Battersea Borribles discover a threat from their mortal enemies the Rumbles (read, Wombles) who must be destroyed if the Borrible lifestyle is to continue. Thus a party of eight Borribles is assembled by Spiff the leading Battersea Borrible, none of whom have yet earned their names, all of whom are keen to rip the straw out of the vile Rumbles. In book two the Borribles have to escape the clutches of the dread Inspector Sussworth and Sergeant Hanks of the SBG. As grotesques go, these two characters are as brilliantly conceived as anything Dickens could have imagined, the former a fascist with a hygiene obsession, the latter a snot- guzzling, lard-arsed clod-foot. The police were never so well satirised. In book two we also meet Ben the smelly tramp, and enjoy a quite brilliant set-piece finale at the bottom of a mineshaft. In book three the Borribles decide to remove Sam their equine mascot to Neasden, where it is hoped he will survive out of the clutches of the SBG. It is in this book that the author's knowledge of London and compassion for those less well off comes to the fore, as the Borribles meet a clutch of extraordinary characters, including Madge and Hugh the meths drinkers, and the Queen Mum, aka Susan the tramp. The scenes where the Borribles are captured by the meths drinkers are as moving as anything I have read in the field of dark fantasy, the ghastly 'meffos' depicted without sentimentality, in all their disgusting variety. Book three also includes a set-piece in a slaughterhouse, and a superbly conceived finale in an old tube tunnel. What also sets this novel apart is the wonderful dialogue, steeped in the Cockney idiom--and you know it's the real thing because of the author's background. Every speech is beautifully crafted, every bit of slang in exactly the right place. Cor blimey guv'nor, this ain't yer manor! The humour is laugh-out-loud: Sergeant Hanks pulls out a bogey and declares, "Hmm, first class that one, looks like a well-fed whelk." The tragedy is sincere and affecting, the shadows are black, and the Thames is dark, oily, deadly. This really is the stuff of fantasy. Forget identikit Tolkien clones, forget sword'n'sorcery, forget heroes with bulging biceps and all the rest of that nonsense. If you want to read something unique, something that will move and excite you, something inspirational, something written with panache, verve and an unwavering gaze cast upon the dark truth of London, read this. Literature / The Borrible Trilogy. Borribles are runaway children who are transformed by obscure means, gaining pointed ears and ceasing to age — unless and until their ears are clipped by their various malevolent enemies, who despise their freedom. They may be intended as a savage satire of The Borrowers; their antagonists in the first novel, the rat-like, fascistic Rumbles, are certainly a clear parody of The Wombles. These books provide examples of: The Ageless: As long as they keep their ears. Alas, Poor Villain: Dewdrop's a nasty piece of work, as his son, but his death scene, stunned by a shot in the forehead with a sling-shot marble, forced to watch his son killed before his eyes, and dispatched while still weeping over him and begging him to wake up , is damned hard to read. Blue-and-Orange Morality: Borribles value freedom and independence above all else, and disdain money and (even worse) work. Theft is much more honorable in their eyes. ISBN 13: 9781417820832. What is a Borrible? Borribles are runaways who dwell in the shadows of London. Apart from their pointed ears, they look just like ordinary children. They live by their wits and a few Borrible laws-the chief one being, Don't Get Caught! The Borribles are outcasts-but they wouldn't have it any other way. One night, the Borribles of Battersea discover a Rumble-one of the giant, rat-shaped creatures who are their ancient enemy-in their territory. Fearing an invasion, an elite group of Borrible fighters set out on what will become known in legend as The Great Rumble Hunt. So begins the first of the three epic adventures in Michael de Larrabeiti's classic trilogy, where excitement, violence, low cunning, greed, generosity, treachery, and bravery exist side by side.