By Quentin S. Crisp
Zagava 2016
My previous reviews of this author HERE and of this publisher HERE.
When I review this publication, my comments will appear in the thought stream below.
The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Review
'…a veritable living, breathing map of the fantastic fiction that is emerging into the world in these troubled times. '
Receiving this book, effectively out of the blue, as I had forgotten about buying it, with a number of black and white photographs reminded me of Watch With Mother in the 1950s when I watched The Woodentops, Rag, Tag and Bobtail, The Flowerpot Men, Andy Pandy and, yes, Picture Book, all in black and white and usually depicting sunny days. Bill and Ben and Little Weed, for example, were always basking in the hot sunshine. And somehow I enjoyed the black and white more than when I later saw colour and ever failed to enjoy hot days, like today. Oh, to be back then, now. I see that would be a good way to die, a calm moment of infanticide, unreviving that doll that was me. (Cf ‘Artificial Life’ by Kristine Ong Muslim in a Snuggly Book entitled ‘Butterfly Dream’ that I read a few days ago.)
This remarkable work, THE LITTLE ONE, is couched in the author’s always dependable texture of prose. It would not be right for me to dare reveal the nature of the lost and secret book discovered for us within this meditation and the significance it has. And the Watch With Mother characters in naively dallying monochrome. And all its quietly stirring debates of ends and means. Unspoilt and simply right. Preferably not reviewed at all.
Suffice to say the lost and secret book is for me this very book in my hand now. How can I say better?
As an aside, I recall the puppet Andy Pandy had a doll named Looby Loo who sometimes came to life and danced but only when Andy and Teddy weren’t looking.