Book Review of The Borrowers

THE BORROWERS - Mary Norton

It’s an experience everyone has isn’t it? You drop something on the floor – an eraser, a pen cap, a scrap of paper- and decide to pick it up later. But when you look for it, it’s disappeared! I’ve always wondered what happens to those things. Where do they go? They practically vanish into thin air! Or do they…?

Mrs. May tells little Kate the story of how her little brother once met a borrower. Off on a holiday in his great aunt’s house in the country, Mrs. May’s brother chanced upon Arrietty Clock –the little girl who introduced him to The Borrowers who believed that human beings existed simply to help them sustain themselves.

The Borrowers are little people who lived in the cozy nooks and corners that large old houses developed with time -the hole behind the clock, the attic, the niche above the mantel piece. They survived by borrowing (not stealing mind you!) things from the “Human beans”. They had to be very careful to move about the house unseen and pick up things that wouldn’t be easily missed; like fish bones for needles, blotting paper for a carpet or even the odd pen cap!

Their greatest fear is that one day a ‘Human Bean’ will see them. But when the boy meets Arrietty Clock, things do not turn out quite as they were expected to.

The book tells of the life of Arrietty Clock and her family. It keeps its reader interested with little fascinating details that set your imagination wild. The flow is slow and easy, the vocabulary is simple, the plot uncomplicated and yet gripping.

People tend not to believe in such things…but I would. I think it’s the best explanation for what happened to that pencil I dropped five minutes ago!

-Kavita Joseph

Review of Susanna's Seven Husbands

(first published in Helter Skelter)

Susanna’s Seven Husbands

‘I watched in fascination as a gigantic Black Widow spider, her body streaked with green and yellow, crept down the veranda wall in the direction of her sleeping husband.’

Susanna’s beauty and wealth mean that she has no problems finding a husband, but somehow they don’t last very long. A motherless child, brought up by her reclusive father (and the Freudian warning bells immediately go off) she becomes the sole heir to his estate and rumored ‘treasure.’ She is of Dutch and East Indian descent; everything about her exudes mystery and she holds a destructive fascination for the locals and the men who fall for her.

A select few are let into her estate, and no one besides her staff and her (current) husband is allowed entry into the house itself.   Even within the house, there are sections that are barred for her trusted staff and her beloved husbands, a fact the latter don’t appreciate. Her staff consists of an eccentric bunch, a jockey referred to as just ‘Goonga’ because he is deaf and mute, her personal help Maggi who was middle aged, grumpy but ‘very efficient’ and Shah Rukh the gardener who will show the narrator, Arun, around the estate.

Arun is ten years younger than Susanna, and her neighbor throughout the story. He admits to himself that the difference in age is a pivotal reason he wasn’t one of the seven, however their relationship will continue to be fraught by jealousy, from both sides.

The novella fails to create the atmosphere that the genre (mystery/murder/horror) demands. The mystery is dispelled early on in each section of the story; there in no big reveal, just details remain to be unveiled. However, the end is unexpected. Characteristic of Bond’s work, the language is simple, the plot understandable and the psychological narration sparse. Susanna is intriguing in her complex generosity and cruelty, in the beguiling nature of her intelligence, her reverence of her father and her search for a man who will replace him.

Penguin has brought out an edition that included the original short story, the novella that it was expanded into and the screenplay of Saat Khoon Maaf that was based on the novella. Out of the three, the screenplay is undoubtedly the worst. The characters speak in hyperbole, the objectiveness of the narrator Arun is reduced to heroine worship, stories unseen in the novella emerge and overwhelm the plot in places and it’s hard to understand how the same Vishal Bharadwaj of the Kaminey vision could have compiled this script.

The short story is perhaps the most charming of the three, and is closer to Ruskin Bond’s customary style than the novella. It has the lingering flavor of a traditional ghost story to it, the mystery remains intact and the suspense is held captive under a gravestone. Or seven. The novella, short story and screenplay all have different endings and I thought the end to the short story was the least dramatic. I would recommend reading the short story to Ruskin Bond fans.

[Penguin; ISBN 978 0 143 41611 1]

-Urvashi Bahuguna