h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What did you think?

Synopsis.

Jamrach's Menagerie is the story of Jaffy, a small boy in London who was carried off by a tiger owned by Charles Jamrach. The boy escapes and Mr Jamrach, a dealer in wild animals offers the boy a job.

Jaffy and Tim, another boy from the Mengarie, join a whaling ship on a side mission to find a Komodo dragon for Mr Jamrach. They succeed in capturing the dragon, but it is let free on the ship by another crewe member who is basically mad. The ship is then wrecked and the crewe escape and are adrift east of Chile. As the crewe run out of water, and food and die there are only 4 left Tim has an idea to draw lots so they can kill one of the crewe to keep going. Tim looses the lot and Jaffy kills him.

Jaffy and Dan, also from the menagerie survive and are faced with coming to terms with what they have done. Jaffy goes back to sea, but then comes home and marries Tim's Sister, and starts his own business.



It was a good and adsorbing read, and I basically flew threw it. I wasn't sure how believable the characters were, Jaffy seemed a little one dimensional, and it wasn't always a convincing child's voice. Although it was based on real events the series of bizarre events happening to one person was a little hard to believe. Mr Jamarach also seemed to be a 'good' character. ALmost a 1 dimensional good character.

I finished reading it. I think it makes for a good read, but I skipped a few pages after Tim was dead. There didn't seem to happen anything which brought the story forwards in any way until Jaffy arrived in London.

I really loved the use of adjectives, the language is incredibly rich. You get the feeling she never uses the same word twice (same with the nouns). So, for her use of language alone this book is well worth reading.

However, I'm with Z here: there are parts which are a bit incredible/unconvincing.

This was a book of two halves (as they say). I nearly gave up about half way through but then I enjoyed the second half.

I didn’t really like the way the first half was written. I’m not quite sure how to describe it but I’m sure there must be a word. It was sort of high paced description, like somebody who is very excited describing something. He kept saying he loved (some girl he’s met or seen) and wanted to stay where he was forever and ever. I found this larger than life world made me feel slightly hyper. It reminded me a lot of A Star Called Henry (Roddy Doyle).

The story itself made me feel slightly bored. We begin with grinding poverty in London, dirt, grime and hunger. Wouldn’t it be nice if the men weren’t always violent and the women always whores? He is of course recued and leads a far more glamorous life (no spoilers, this is apparent from the first page of the book).

One of the central themes in this first half of the book is his relationship with a slightly older boy and his twin sister. The boy is of course better looking, stronger, more glamorous and mean, whilst our hero falls in love with the girl. This all felt a bit tired. If a young boy is described in golden glowing terms it does seem to rather spell his demise. Do only the good die young?

In the second part of the book things start to go wrong. A shipmate has mental troubles, the dragon escapes and then they are ship wrecked. I found this part of the book (even before the shooting) quite interesting. The way everything washes over them. I was quite relieved when the second boat of survivors went down and we didn’t have to wait for each person to die in turn.

After they were recued and returned to land I thought an effort was made to realism, he spent months being depressed etc but I found the fate of his mother during his absence a little hard to believe. The ending was a little neat as well (he gets the girl, has a prosperous life and puts his trauma essentially behind him).

I agreed that it wasn’t an authentic voice of a child but I thought it was supposed to be written later, there was some reference to him writing his memoirs. I thought that made the voice (at the beginning which I didn’t like) make sense. As if he was remembering a time when he was happy and in love with the world and the new adventures.

I offered the book to my sister to read. She asked what it was about. I hummed and hahed and gave a short description, but had to admit that this certainly isn't a book I'd recommend as a 'must read'.