Hob and the Peddler [Hardcover]

What can one say about William Mayne to give a real idea of the extraordinary quirkiness of his writing? He can give you North-country idiom of 200 years ago, or a simpler neutral tone of today (more or less) or country-folk's lives in 19th century Cornwall: yet always with his own twist. His language operates at 90 degrees to the rest of us. For instance, here's how Hob (his Puck or Pook-like creation) describes paddling in the waves at the sea's edge:

"We have seen the sea," said Michael.
"So have I," thought Hob. "It comes up behind you and gives you a wet lick. It sucks away the sand under your feet and gallops off again."

He liked this thought - used it again in "A Year and a Day," the enchanting story of the fairy changeling boy who spoke in seagull's cries: Rebecca starts up quickly from where she is lying at the edge of the sea. "She kicked the sea, getting up so fast. The sea kissed the back of her knee, very wet."

Or take the thoughts of the donkey plodding along, pulling the peddler's cart, as he went on carefully getting his feet in the right order. "That one, this one, t'other one, the last one," he was repeating to himself. "How many have I got?"

And what can one think about a character - a something - who lives in the bend of the sink and is called SlyMe?

When you start into a Mayne book you never know where you will end up. "Hob and the Peddler" begins on somewhat familiar ground - if anything in Mayne can be said to be familiar - but by the end you are rearranging the stars in the dark fabric of the universe, and also dealing with a huge voice: "far out to sea, something hooted, once, twice, and a third time wailing like a question."

As you can imagine, it can be quite hard to summarize a Mayne book. I will try only so far as to say that it involves more "adventures" of Hob, the little house-spirit - mostly invisible, at least to humans - who has to stay in any house where he is invited, and has the compulsions of a tidy housekeeper. He has to stay in a house even if they treat him badly (the people realize he is there: they can hear him sneeze even if they can't see him). He can leave only if someone gives him clothes.

The peddler is a mysterious fellow who says things like "So much time has been used up in this world that there isn't a lot left" and seems to know a lot about the universe, and sea monsters, and strange pools of black water that isn't water, and...oh, I give up. You'll just have to read it.

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