The Mouse Triptych - Couverture souple

Thomson, Ian

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1484015576 ISBN 13 : 9781484015575

Editeur : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

Synopsis

The Mouse Triptych is a trilogy of stories where mice, in one way or another, tangle with humans. In A Stroke of Genius, a mastermind among mice, seeking refuge from a bitter winter, finds his way into a big Victorian house. Its once-grand rooms are now occupied by a shabby old scholar who has a pathological fear of mice. Man and mouse engage in a life and death struggle until, at a stroke, the odds are reversed. Polemikos is the dark story of a mouse born inside the Trojan Horse. He believes his mission is to save Troy from her doom and from the vulgar Greeks. His short life inside the stinking belly of the horse moves to a devastating climax as he follows the psychopath, Pyrrhus, in his murderous path through the blazing city. The reader is left to decide whether little Polemikos changes the course of history or not. The third tale, The Downing Street Cat, is lighter in tone, though it contains playful satire. It is set inside Number 10 Downing Street, the seat of the UK Government, where the Cabinet (of mice, of course) is deliberating about how to get rid of the Cat. The Minister for Nocturnal Affairs has a remarkably devious plan. The stories are held together by the low esteem in which mice hold men and there is a comic vein which runs through them even at the darkest moments. Each can be read separately, but in fact, they are subtly hinged by the idea that humans have less control of their destinies than they might suppose.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

I was born in Blackburn, Lancashire on Halloween, 1949, in a different world, where coal was delivered by horse and cart, as was sarsaparilla and ginger beer on a Saturday afternoon. Like any boy of my age, I wore sleeveless tank tops, which were short, and shorts which were long. I would prick tar bubbles in the street and long to be a mythical hero with winged sandals and the patronage of Athena. It was not to be. I had a blessedly traditional education at St John's C of E School and was a chorister though I never stunned with a top C, nor, as a boy scout did I have my arms poulticed with badges. However, I did well enough and had the scabbed knees of a proper boy instead. At eleven, I won a scholarship to QEGS where I found myself to be a very small fish, and where class came to matter quite painfully at first. There was some mediocre teaching but I was lucky enough to be nurtured from the third form onward by three inspirational masters. I was rather good at French and English, but abysmal at Maths. I loved Latin but found it unnecessarily hard and would go into reveries about how ancient Romans could possibly have spoken to each other with any fluency: ‘ I'll have those dormouse pies, please. Wait while I fiddle in my purse for a few sesterces and stick the verb at the end.’ My nicknames were ‘Twig’, after a character in a forgotten play, and ‘Plum’ in the Sixth Form, thanks to the Beano. I did a lot of acting. My first role was as a milkmaid (in French) though I graduated to Prince Hal in Henry IV. I went up to Downing College, Cambridge to read English, having never been further south than Pwlleli. At first, I was unhappy and thought I should have been at drama school, but I soon became bedazzled by it all. I was too young to appreciate all this and no doubt prodigally wasted much of my youth. But that is not a new story. Life accelerates, or living it does. I have taken risks, lost out and been on the skids in the suburbs. I have worked as a deputy hotel manager, a doctors’ receptionist, office manager to a scaffolding firm, and as an auxiliary nurse in a geriatric ward. I now teach English at a school in Lincoln under the shadow of the most beautiful cathedral in Europe. In Winter I can see it from the garden; it invites me to aspire. I wish I had more time to write.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1484015576
• ISBN 13: 9781484015575
• Reliure: Broché
• Illustrateur: Servonat-Blanc Catherine
• Nombre de pages: 208
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg