Sorry, My Title Writer Is Away At The Moment (My Friend Mr. Leakey - J.B.S. Haldane)

Name: jillmurphy

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Product:	My Friend Mr. Leakey - J.B.S. Haldane
Date:	26/05/01 (140 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I'm intimidated by three of these boxes.

Disadvantages: Doubly so when I realise it's actually six of them.

"Mr Leakey turned over the pages and read out a spell. Then he took my left foot, shoe and all, and unscrewed it. It didn't hurt a bit, though it felt funny. It unscrewed just above the ankle. It didn't bleed at all, and I could see the two bones as he took the foot off. He took a golden thing like a motor tyre pump and squirted something out of it into the stump of my foot. I felt a nice warm feeling going up my leg into me. Then he screwed my foot on again. I could still see the join, but he said another spell, and my leg looked just as it had done before."

Oops. Sorry. I got carried away. Do you like that? I like that. No, I LOVE that. Actually, honestly, in reality I simply couldn’t think of a better way to introduce you to Mr Leakey – cool, ain’t he? He’s a magician you know; not a conjurer, not the kind of sleight-of-hand illusionist that needs to hide his talent behind a sparkly scarf or under his silk handkerchief, but the kind of magician who can do his stuff right in front of your wide-open, staring eyes. He’s a real one. And he’s a nice one too. In the extract above he’s helping his friend, and the story’s narrator, to prepare for his first ever journey on a flying carpet. They’re going to be flying fairly high you see, at least five miles up, and the air’s thin at that altitude, but Mr Leakey prefers his magical solution to the boring one of an oxygen mask.

Mr Leakey lives with his servants and assistants the dragon Pompey, the octopus Oliver and the jinn Abdu’l Makkar. Our narrator becomes his friend when one day he saves him from being run over by a car. To show his gratitude Mr Leakey invites him to dinner on Wednesday week (heehee). It’s a meal unlike any other – of course it is; it’s a meal with a real magician like I told you, a proper one. Our narrator (we never learn his name) is amazed at what he finds. Mr Leakey doesn&
#8217;t look like a magician you see; he’s not a Merlin figure, he doesn’t wear a pointy hat or sport pentangle motifs, he looks, well, he looks so ordinary. It doesn’t take long though to discover that he’s not ordinary at all.

The walls of Mr Leakey’s flat aren’t covered with wallpaper, they’re covered with tapestry curtains displaying various scenes; a hunt, a town under construction, and these scenes are constantly changing. During dinner a house gets built and the quarry is sighted, hunted and caught. In the fireplace lives Pompey, the tiny dragon. In a large copper pot in the corner lives Oliver the servant and cook. Around the walls are cabinets containing shelves and shelves of tall, leather-bound books. And the room is lit not by electric light but by real, luminous fruits of a kind our narrator has never seen before. His soup is produced from Mr Leakey’s hat, his turkey is produced and served from nowhere by Oliver and the strawberries are brought fresh from New Zealand by Abdu’l Makkar. Even the cream comes direct from a miniature cow, a green one. What a meal.

There are six stories in My Friend Mr Leakey, three of them about the life of the magician and the great times the quiet, shy man who’s telling us all about it has with him. You can find out about what a real magician actually does in modern times in a city like London – he deals with vicious dogs and nasty money lenders for instance. You can take a journey around the world on a flying carpet with an introduction to astronomy to boot, and you can attend a magic fancy dress party which isn’t really fancy dress at all because the costumes aren’t clothes – they’re magic spells, it’s a transformation party really. The other three tales are just as good, just as quaint and just as funny, even without Mr Leakey. When he’s not about you can laugh at the great rat infestation o
f London Town or the impossible-to-lose shirt collar stud, or the snake with golden teeth.

I was reminded of Mr Leakey who was a great childhood favourite of mine, by frannyfortune here on dooyoo who put him in a Top Ten Books opinion – thanks frannyfortune because you’ve done me an enormous favour. I read that opinion, logged off dooyoo and rushed upstairs feeling a bit nervous and a bit excited too. Getting reminded of books gets me excited. I was a bit nervous because I couldn’t remember seeing the turquoise spine of that ancient dog-eared Puffin book for ages. I certainly hadn’t read it in a long, long time. Phew. It was still there. Ten minutes later I was safely ensconced, reading away and laughing away, just like I used to. And now I’m halfway through reading him aloud to Conor and Kieran and they’re laughing too.

I suppose you could say a lot of Haldane’s book is rather like Roald Dahl; full of the sort of silly, slightly naughty descriptions (I mean, unscrewing legs, even if you’re trying to help someone out, seems rather naughty to a child, doesn’t it?) like the one with which I started this opinion. Here, have another:

“Though of course the only giraffe I ever knew that was really any use… belonged to a man called Tomkins of Oswaldtwistle, who was so afraid of burglars that he lived in a house with no stairs, and got up to the first floor and down again by a pet giraffe that would only answer his voice. And in case the burglars put up ladders he taught it to knock ladders down. But it was no good. A burglar made a tape recording of his voice which deceived the giraffe so that it let him climb up it, and he stole Mr Tomkin’s evening dress studs and his grandfather clock while he was at the cinema looking at Marlene Dietrich.”

Heehee. Oh, over-quoting be darned, you’d better have one chosen by Conor and Kieran too:

̶
0;The Akoond of Swat had seven wives with gold nose-rings. The Jam of Las Bela has seventeen golden toothpicks, five golden parrot cages, and a golden foot-scraper. The Begum of Bhopal had a golden sewing machine. She was an old lady, and quite intelligent, but she always went about with her head in a bag because she thought it would never do if people saw her face.”

My children killed themselves laughing at that one, they think it’s rather risque and much ruder than they’d dare to be and I’ve had to read it a few extra times so that they can practise saying the names. They sort of did an “oo-er” snigger or three, or four at the unscrewing of the leg too. But Haldane isn’t like Dahl in that there is no darkness or creepiness about his tales; Mr Leakey is odd, he’s mysterious but he’s also a jolly good egg and never does anything nasty at all. He’s always helping people out and just generally doing the right thing.

Haldane was a scientist, a geneticist I think, and he fills his stories with huge amounts of scientific information; about the stars, about physiology, about evolution, but you’re so busy laughing that you don’t feel lectured at all (oops, I mean your CHILDREN are so busy laughing that they don’t’ feel lectured at all, forgive the silly slip please – I know you know I read for my children’s sakes, not mine). He was also a socialist and there are a few pointed references in the book about the responsibilities we have to treat each other as equals and the social responsibilities that wealth should, but doesn’t always, bring – still never a lecture though. I reckon I read Mr Leakey tens and tens and tens of times as a child and, judging by their reaction these past couple of afternoons, I don’t think it’ll be the only time he’s read by Conor and Kieran either. He’s great. You should read him too. Your child
ren would probably get there themselves at seven or eight, but why wait? Read him now.

Oh, and yes; purchasing information - you're going to need that because you can't just hop over to Amazon. I nearly forgot, so sorry! He’s out of print in this country I’m afraid. But fear not - I searched a few online second hand bookshops and found several copies of the same version I have (Puffin paperback illustrated by Quentin Blake) available quite cheaply, I also discovered that it was reprinted by Vigyan Prasar fairly recently and is available at the Other India Bookstore (www.goacom.com/oibs) ifyou don't mind buying from overseas. Also, four of the stories, ‘A Day with Mr Leakey’ (the magic carpet one), 'The Magic Collar Stud' (the unloseable one), ‘Rats’ (er, the rats one), and The Snake with Golden Teeth (rather silly brackets these, aren't they?) are up at www.pitara.com to download for free - once again in case you missed it - FOR FREE (just look for J B S Haldane in the search facility at the bottom of the pitara homepage).

See? See how much I want you to be Mr Leakey's friend too? I've told you before how lazy I am. And I went to all that effort just for you lot. Don't let me down now, do make friends with him, you will now, won’t you?

PS – Thanks again frannyfortune!

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