I Still Read Him…

Thinking of the past decade I pondered on which writer I still read.  Who sustains my reading need and whom I can still re-read without effort after ten years of intense change?  There can only be one for me, not Paul Jennings- though he was great fun- or Paul Auster for I’ve only known him recently.  The only writer who straddles both ends of the this first decade of the new millennium like an overarching colossal must be none other than Mr. Philip Ridley.

I had first encountered him in Year Seven of Secondary School while studying Krindle Krax for English.  The story, about a boy and his alligator, leaves little impression on me, and though it won the W.H.Smith’s Mind-Boggling Books Award I believe it his weakest book; but something about it I must have liked for I went on reading everything else by him.  Actually I first read him in Primary School but I’ve only realised now that he wrote Zinder Zunder.

His stories are modern fables, as harsh and fantastic as old fables, with captivating titles such as: Meteorite Spoon, Dakota of the White Flats, Scribbleboy, Mercedes Ice, Vinegar Street and, my personal favourite, Kasper in the Glitter.  I read and was engrossed by them all. The outlandish characters with strong traits draw me in and the imaginative emotions keep me there.  The landscapes are of dark urban areas, much like the Bethnal Green he grew up in, full of cruel beauty and gritty splendor.  It was majestically haunting.

I grew but his writing stayed with me as I read his epic Mighty Fizz Chilla in Year Ten; but I thought eventually I would grow out of him.  However when I read his adult plays in College I knew I could not.  Beautifully brutal his plays are a continuation of his children’s work but full of the swearing, sexuality and visceral violence absent from his prose.  Watching Vincent River in the small Alma Tavern was a powerful testament to what two characters in a room can achieve.  Earlier this year I tried to find the Shoreditch Rise mentioned in the play but aptly enough only found The Museum of Childhood.  The Fastest Clock in the Universe was a perverse delight- his best, saddest, story of friendship.  Then watching the first production of Piranha Heights in Soho was for me an event of last year. 

Hopefully in time I will have the wonderful chance to watch Mercury Fur, The Pitchfork Disney, Leaves of Glass and Ghost From a Perfect Place.  It also goes for his films; I have watched The Krays but have yet to watch his Reflecting Skin and Passion of Darkly Noon, though the library holds screenplays of both.

Finally after all the pleasure he has given me I can, in my small way, return the compliment with words of my own.  There is still plenty more of him to explore and I understand now that he will never leave me, lucky, lucky me.

Alistair Todd