The Borribles Go for Broke

Discovering that Sam the horse is still alive, the adventurers seek him and are lured into danger, both by the SBG (Special Borrible Group) police and one of the most cunning of their own tribe, Spiff. The Borribles fling themselves into, and extricate themselves from, many a mess, but end up in the worst of all possible worlds - Wendle territory, deep beneath the streets - Wandsworth (where the best Borribles come from). Here are scenes to make a reader weep and shudder with awe. If you have not been at the bottom of the Wandle river in a shifting tunnel of mud, or watched Spiff fight with a spade honed razor sharp, then you have missed some of the best Borrible action that currently exists. The Borribles is a truly subversive piece of children's literature. The trilogy takes all the epic fantasy elements of Tolkien: adventure, clansmanship, codes of Honour, and inverts them against a backdrop of urban decay and social entropy. Borribles are children who run away from home, scavenge for food and would live forever were it not for the adult world's constant attempts at dragging them jealously back into the madness of workaday mortality. De Larrabeiti is obsessed with the geography of a London that he depicts as a city of near total squalor. The Thames is black and cholera ridden, warehouses crumble, schools lay in ruins and mindless commuters shuffle blindly to work each morning whilst the wily Borribles steal fruit from markets, carry catapults for protection and attempt to live outside of the rat-race. As the story progresses, so does Larrabeiti's vision, shifting from the relatively whimsical sparring of rival subhuman groups -Borribles versus the strange, rat-like Rumbles- to a more serious depiction of a highly moral youth culture where money is an evil temptation, corroding the Borribles' scruffy, communal utopia, forcing them out of hiding and into battle with the adult world; a world teaming with sadistic policemen, hysterical civilians and degenerate alcoholic child-snatchers. A world where the only friendly adults are tramps, wasters and circus freaks. Not hard to see then, why the books never made it onto school reading lists. Yet the characterization is mature and moving, the plotline ingenious and thrilling. But perhaps most impressive of all is the whole Borrible mythology: a coherent world complete with proverbs, songs, rules, lore and ethical codes, thriving beneath the grimy, menacing mess of modern London. Arguably one of the greatest works of children's fiction and almost certainly the darkest and most morally ambiguous, The Borribles is a fantasy saga ripe for comic-strip and film adaptation, yet it appears to have slipped into near obscurity. Join the cult and treat yourself to a copy, whatever your age.