The Witches Of Chiswick by Robert Rankin

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The Witches Of Chiswick by Robert Rankin
pub: Gollancz. 359 page hardback. Price: Ł 9.99 (UK only). ISBN: 0-575-07314-4/0-575-07547-3 (paperback)

check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk

This book has affected me in a very negative way. I now like beer even more than I did before. It has transformed itself in my mind from that cheapish stuff that you imbibe in order to get a little bit tipsy on a Friday night to an amber liquid of such purity that it should be used to baptise babies and be sought after like Arthurian knights do the Holy Grail.

The way that Rankin eulogises the 'piss up' is horribly infectious and if his literary success increases even further then we should expect the membership of Alcoholics Anonymous to triple over the next few years. I'm already practicing the signature for my membership card.

The Witches Of Chiswick by Robert Rankin

Indeed, this book does read as if it has been written by a drink-fuelled maniac but a maniac of such sparkling wit and eloquence that you would forgive them if they knocked your pint over and felt up your mum or knocked your mum over and felt up your pint for that matter.

I hesitate to describe too much of the plot as it is very much a servant of the insane dialogue and situations. Here goes though. The main character is a guy called Will Starling who lives in 'the day after the day after tomorrow.' Wills futuristic world is a horrific dystopia where corporations rule the world and have even bought out all of the major religions. Worse than this, obesity has become the social norm leaving the unusually thin Starling to occupy the position of social outcast. Couple this with his unhealthy fascination with art and literature, particularly of the Victorian age, and you have one very troubled individual.

When Will discovers a digital wristwatch in a painting by the Victorian artist Richard Dadd things go from bad to worse. Will works at the Tate Gallery, preparing paintings for reproduction. When he shows this discovery to his boss, he is sent hurtling down a course that will lead to him saving the painting and being chased by a smelly terminator-like machine that's trying to get it back.

From then on we have time-travel, alternate universes and guest-appearances from various key Victorian figures, including many that were up to now mistakenly believed to be fictional. The plot proceeds to run around like a headless chicken and takes more side-roads than a convicted felon fleeing the country.

As I mentioned though, who cares about the plot! After five minutes of reading you certainly won't as you'll be too busy wetting your pants with laughter. Rubber underwear is certainly the order of the day as Rankin delivers chapter after chapter of well-crafted puns coupled with cultural references of so diverse a nature that they will make your head spin like Linda Blair's in ‘The Exorcist’.

Rankin has a delight in word play unmatched amongst his peers and it is only because of this that we can forgive him things that would have other authors executed under international law. A self-confessed fondness for alliteration would be something I might bring up. How does he get away with it? It's because, as an old lecturer of mine might have said, ‘although he's breaking all of the rules, we know that he's not breaking those rules by accident, he's doing it deliberately.’

Also, I would like to mention that comparisons to other popular humorous authors (who shall remain nameless) are entirely unjustified. Rankin's style is unique and is very unlike his current contemporaries. Of note particularly in ‘Witches’ would be his willingness to eschew the family demographic and admit that people do have sex and that it's not always between a loving couple who've spent the last two hundred pages getting to know each other.

He admits that sometimes getting drunk can actually be quite fun. Indeed the 'heroes' of ‘Witches’ only seem to conduct their actions for their own glorification or in Will's best friend Tim's case because it's a bit of a laugh. He dares to believe in the intelligence of his readers and does not diminish his material to increase its popularity.

Rankin is also not afraid of reminding the reader that they are reading a book. At multiple points in ‘Witches’, we are invited behind the scenes to have a look at the wooden props holding up the backdrops.

This is sometimes done in footnotes but most often happens right in front of you in the main text, often when you would least expect it. It turns the book into an almost communal experience, as if you are sitting in The Flying Swan and listening to Rankin speak himself. The most important factor of this approach is that it never allows a silly thing like naturalism to get in the way of a really good joke.

So if you're in the mood for a book that will really deliver on the laughs (and proper belly laughs, mind you) whilst still being as literate as any 'serious' fiction out there, then ‘The Witches Of Chiswick’ is for you.

And also it features a talking sprout named Barry. What more could you want, huh?

Paul Skevington

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