bengriffin's reviews
2677 reviews

A nice little collection, great illustrations and some beautifully woeful/touching tales. Hermit Wanted was my personal favourite. Edward Gorey is a good comparison to make I think. Definitely suitable for both children and adults, so long as they don't mind a bit of macabre.

Possibly one of the shortest books that took me the longest time to read ever. Every time I picked it up I enjoyed reading it, but at the same time it was such a struggle. I enjoyed his economic language, beautiful descriptions, and reflections on a lost way of life, but at the same time I think it's his sparse, dry language and landscapes that made this so hard to get through. Maybe I just read it at the wrong time, but it will be a good while before I get around to continuing with the trilogy.

Muriel Spark is amazing at creating messed up characters. Whilst none of the ones here are as dark and unhinged as Lise in The Driver's Seat, they all have their issues, and Jean Brodie is easily one of the most manipulative, self-absorbed characters ever created. I really enjoy Spark's economical writing style and the things she doesn't say, and whilst it's a more subdued tale than The Driver's Seat, it's still an engaging read with some fantastically destructive characters and a dark sense of humour.

This is a nice little adventure story with some [hefty?] nods to other great great writers, particularly Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll, and some of his descriptions are excellent. Overall, however, I did find the whole thing a little flat and at times it felt like he was trying too hard to be clever, or like he's aimed it at both adults and children but ended up missing both. It's lacking the substance, power, and emotion of works such as Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book or Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials which really do transcend boundaries, delighting, frightening, and moving both adult and child equally. If you'd prefer to sink your teeth into something substantial then try either of those, but if you just want some light adventure that enjoys its origins, promotes the nature of stories, and is a quick read with a happy ending, then this will do just fine.

I'm wondering if there's a Dan Rhodes book I won't five star now. Funny for both its accuracy and its ridiculousness, these stories are succinct, precise, touching and lethal. I was going to list some of my favourites but there's too many. I'm going to force this book on a lot of people.

Dark, funny, surreal, nightmarish, scathing absurdity.

Far from essential reading but definitely interesting, especially to gain more insight into Levi's broad, intellectual depths.

I was really stuck between giving this 3 or 4 stars. The ideas within, its ease of reading, and a really powerful monologue in The Garden at Gethsemane suggest it should be worth more. There's just something about it that also felt a little thin. Perhaps it's because His Dark Materials set the bar too high, possibly because that was a fully fledged story built around ideas whereas this felt a bit like an existing story with ideas pinned to it [which it is]. Don't get me wrong, it's really well written, engaging, interesting, and worth reading, just don't expect to be as affected as you'd like to be.

A lot of humour, horror and satire crammed into such a few pages.

A beautiful edition and an impressive compendium, but as many people have said, apart from the odd entry, it is more of a dictionary than a showcase of his writing. Impressive, but not particularly lovable.