John Christopher’s Guardians: Part II

Just like Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians, John Christopher’s Guardians is a slender little children’s paperback that at first sight might just possibly have enough material to inspire a paragraph or two of commentary. I found however that the more times I went through these books, the more material of interest I noticed and the more articles I needed to produce in order to cover it.

I investigated the Linnets book because I learned that it had a witch in it; working on the Borribles article reminded me of the Guardians book, which I first read ages ago just for the story. This time around, it is the issues and connections that are the main objects of interest.

In addition to the connections mentioned in Part I, The Guardians has some scenes and elements that remind me very much of Robert A. Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy.  Before going into this and some further connections, there is more of Rob Randall’s story to be told.

Rob arrives in the County
Rob Randall, the young orphaned Conurban hero of The Guardians, runs away from his hated boarding school to a place that he sees as his only option i.e. the County. 

He may have planned his escape and journey to the County carefully, but he has not thought much about what he will do when he gets there. 

Conurbans are like Borribles in that they prefer crowded streets to empty fields! Rob has not thought about the effect that the wide open spaces will have on him:

“Rob found himself shivering, not just with cold but at the sight of darkness, the thought of the emptiness beyond. All his life, like everyone else in the Conurbs, he had been surrounded by the comforting presence of others - all the millions of them. Being glad to have a little privacy occasionally was not the same as wanting to go out there, alone.”

However, Rob is tough and adaptable and he is interested in new experiences:

“Two rabbits appeared from the wood and he watched them, fascinated. It was hard to believe he was really here, in the County, with plants budding, wild things living all around him. And yet already this was the reality, the Conurb  - with its packed streets, high-rise buildings, crawling electrocars - the fantasy.”

John Christopher’s Guardians: Part I

The Guardians by John Christopher is a dystopian science fiction novel that was first published in 1970. Just like Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borribles trilogy, it was written for children and teenagers. 

The Guardians has nothing like the number of characters and adventures that can be found in the Borrible books, but this little story has an issue in common with them. 

The Guardians is a book of interest because of the character of the young hero Rob Randall and the question of which is the better of the two very different and complementary lifestyles it describes. It also contains some material that reminds me of other books mentioned on here.

The two worlds of The Guardians
The Guardians is set in England in the year 2052. England is divided into two distinct societies, the Conurbs and the County.

The Conurbs are highly-populated towns where modern technology is much in evidence. The majority of English people live in Conurbs. They are mainly workers. There are occasional riots, but the people are mostly kept quiet with entertainment in the form of carnivals and arena games that appeal to the bloodthirsty - bread and circuses with holovision.

The County is the sparsely-populated countryside, the home of the aristocratic minority. They are mainly people of independent means. They prefer not to use much technology; they have horses for transport. Their lifestyle is rather like that of Edwardian gentry at the height of the British Empire.

Huge fences keep the two societies separate physically, and a carefully controlled, conditioned and manipulated mutual 'us and them' mentality keeps them apart psychologically.

Something about Rob Randall
The story opens in a public library - this is an encouraging start!

The library is in the Conurb of London. Unfortunately it is dilapidated, decaying and well past its prime. People have become less individual, less inquiring and have mostly stopped reading books. Rob Randall, who likes solitude and has a love of reading, is the only person under fifty who goes there. He likes stories filled with excitement and adventures.

Rob’s mother, who was born in the County and who encouraged him to use the library, is dead; his father, who is an electrician, is killed in a work accident early on in the book. Rob is then sent by the authorities to a horrible state boarding school where the food is awful and he is given a very hard time by the masters, the prefects and the other boys.

Something about Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borribles

Just like Alan Garner’s Owl Service, Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borrible books are for me once read, never forgotten.

The Borrible books are urban fantasy; the Borrible people whose adventures they recount are something of a wainscot society.

The three Borrible books, which were later published in one volume, are:

The Borribles (1976)
The Borribles Go for Broke (1981)
Across the Dark Metropolis (1986).

There are no metaphysical elements in these books and they don’t contain much material that is relevant to this blog, but they do inspire some commentary.

The Borrible books are intended for older children but have a much wider appeal. Although I discovered them only as an adult, I found them fascinating; they left an immediate and permanent impression on the first reading. A big attraction for me is that they are set in London; they mention many places and features that I know well.

The Borrible books are a very good read, but they should have a warning for the faint-hearted and squeamish! They contain some vile, cruel, dangerous and sinister characters, there is much violence and killing, and some of the action takes place in very filthy and squalid surroundings such as sewers and junkyards.

In addition to that, they are sometimes seen as subversive. Across the Dark Metropolis, the third book in the series, was originally scheduled to be released in 1985, but the publishers pulled out at the last moment because of the riots in London. They felt that its strong anti-police message and glamourising of lawlessness made it unsuitable for publication in the climate of the time. By coincidence, some of the riots took place in areas of London that are mentioned in the book, Brixton for example.

What are Borribles?
Borribles are feral runaway children who never grow into adults - so long as they remain at liberty and their pointed ears remain unclipped. Some of them are around one hundred years old, but they still look like children.