Denys Watkins-Pitchford The Little Grey Men (1942)
Although the cover seems distantly familiar, none of the usual nostalgia informs my choice, and I'm not aware of actually having heard of The Little Grey Men prior to Chris Browning mentioning it on facebook a couple of months ago; but the aforementioned Chris Browning's recommendations have served me well in the past, and as I'm presently sitting on a couple of unfinished gnome novels, it seemed like I should at least have a look at this one; and there it was by pure chance on the shelves of the Coventry branch of Oxfam.
Watkins-Pitchford, who wrote as B.B., was primarily a naturalist, and The Little Grey Men explores his interest in the same from a variant angle, namely in the form of a children's book perhaps partially inspired by the success of Tolkien's Hobbit which had been published in 1937. The Little Grey Men accordingly distances itself from anything else which may have featured small persons of mythic composition, and does so on the very first page, declaring what follows to be none of your baby, fairy-book tinsel stuff. Most impressive about The Little Grey Men is the author's communication of scale, expertly guiding the reader around a diminutive riverbank world which at least a few of us will recall from childhood. This story is told amongst the voles and squirrels with its quiet drama as wide as the stream or hedgerow, as distinct from the usual warmed over mythology scaled down to fit a doll's house; and it's told exceptionally well, at the pace of ordinary rural life, and with surprises as weird and unexpected as anything found in nature, provided one is prepared to sit and watch for a while.
Very little actually happens, at least in comparison to other, more demonstrative quests inhabiting the same vague genre, but it doesn't need to as Watkins-Pitchford demonstrates that the very small is just as important, and as vital, and as worthy of our attention; and he does it with such convincing veracity that when we get to chapter ten and its introduction of the genuinely weird, it seems like the most natural thing on Earth.
The Little Grey Men isn't quite like anything else I've read, and may be justifiably deemed a masterpiece.
Although the cover seems distantly familiar, none of the usual nostalgia informs my choice, and I'm not aware of actually having heard of The Little Grey Men prior to Chris Browning mentioning it on facebook a couple of months ago; but the aforementioned Chris Browning's recommendations have served me well in the past, and as I'm presently sitting on a couple of unfinished gnome novels, it seemed like I should at least have a look at this one; and there it was by pure chance on the shelves of the Coventry branch of Oxfam.
Watkins-Pitchford, who wrote as B.B., was primarily a naturalist, and The Little Grey Men explores his interest in the same from a variant angle, namely in the form of a children's book perhaps partially inspired by the success of Tolkien's Hobbit which had been published in 1937. The Little Grey Men accordingly distances itself from anything else which may have featured small persons of mythic composition, and does so on the very first page, declaring what follows to be none of your baby, fairy-book tinsel stuff. Most impressive about The Little Grey Men is the author's communication of scale, expertly guiding the reader around a diminutive riverbank world which at least a few of us will recall from childhood. This story is told amongst the voles and squirrels with its quiet drama as wide as the stream or hedgerow, as distinct from the usual warmed over mythology scaled down to fit a doll's house; and it's told exceptionally well, at the pace of ordinary rural life, and with surprises as weird and unexpected as anything found in nature, provided one is prepared to sit and watch for a while.
Very little actually happens, at least in comparison to other, more demonstrative quests inhabiting the same vague genre, but it doesn't need to as Watkins-Pitchford demonstrates that the very small is just as important, and as vital, and as worthy of our attention; and he does it with such convincing veracity that when we get to chapter ten and its introduction of the genuinely weird, it seems like the most natural thing on Earth.
The Little Grey Men isn't quite like anything else I've read, and may be justifiably deemed a masterpiece.
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