Collected together in a
handy trilogy Michael de
Larabeiti's bizarre,
fantastic, funny and
downright strange books
about the London urchins
who never grow up The
Borribles are
re-released, originally
published in 1976 (The
Borribles), 1981 (The
Borribles Go For Broke)
and 1986 (The
Borribles:Across the
Dark Metropolis) the
tales of the Borribles
mixes in elements of
Peter Pan, The Wombles
(step forward The
Rumbles), Lord of the
Rings quest type action
and even A Clockwork
Orange style ultra
violence.
The books are great fun
to read and the plots
fairly rattle along but
who are they aimed at? -
probably too much bad
language for younger
children, older teens
might think they were
for younger kids - I
reckon the prime
audience is anyone 20
plus who want to
recapture their spirit
of adventure.
Borribles
are amazing
"creatures"
being basically runaway
kids who, if they can
stay on the streets of
London long enough,
become borrible, sprout
pointy ears and never
grow old. The Borribles
live on their wits and
by whatever food or
other stuff they can
scavenge, gaining their
names from the
adventures they
undertake.
The Borribles have three
sworn enemies in the
form of The Rumbles who
live underground in the
big parks on the
outskirts of London then
there is the SBG - a
special offshoot of the
Metropolitan police
called The Special
Borrible Group who are
specialists in trying to
catch borribles and trim
their ears (once a
borrible loses his or
her pointy ears they
have to drift back into
normal life and horrible
adulthood.
Thirdly there
were the thankfully rare
Borrible-snatchers,
modern day Fagins who
catch the Borribles and
make them steal for
them.
No
question about it this
trilogy is definitely
something a bit special
and should be more
widely known than it is,
certainly overly violent
in places (scores of
Rumbles and even some
Borribles meet their
deaths in the most
unlikely ways - one
chief Rumble even has a
car fall on top of him!)
and not stories that you
would want to read your
kids before bed but The
Borrible trilogy should
definitely be added to
the canon of fantastic
quality fiction.
