March Books 9) A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair, by Jonathan Gash

[nwhyte]

'These aren't padpas, Doshie,' I said. 'They're tsavorite.' A tsavorite is properly green grossular, a sort of garnet discovered some seventy years ago near Kenya's National Park at Tsavo. Its lovely green lies between deep Sri Lankan emeralds and a peridot. (Tip: Don't buy a tsavorite unless it's above one carat in size.) 'Measure its single

Comments

[gareth_rees]

There's an excellent children's science fiction novel by Nicholas Fisk with (very nearly) this title. In the 22nd century, a boy is sent to observe a family of experimental subjects who believe they are living in London during World War II...

[nwhyte]

It's a quote from Kipling's poem "The Vampire".

http://www.bartleby.com/364/121.html

[atreic]

Yes, I was very confused that this review made no sense until I worked out it wasn't the Nicholas Fisk book!

[marykaykare]

I'm sorry, but the first part of that is nonsense. Padparadschas are, by definition, an orangey-pink sapphire. Tsavorites are green. No one could possibly mistake one for the other, and if they did you wouln't have to go measuring refraction to tell them apart. Well, maybe if you were colorblind....

I read a few early Lovejoys but I found his attitudes towards women stomach turning. Has this improved at all in the later books?

MKK--always looking for more books to read.

[nwhyte]

You're quite right; indeed in a later passage Lovejoy talks about the distinctive colour of the padparadschas, so it is very odd not to mention them here,

I'm afraid the viewpoint character"s attitude to women remains pretty constant, though one redeeming feature in this one is that he spends most of it putting right a wrong done to one of his former lovers.

[artw]

Rescuing a damsel in distress is not terrifically convincing as a redeeming feature. But we won't tell anyone you read this stuff. It can be a secret between us and the internet.