Krishna
A completely different genre, an old author, (The books were written in the 1920-30 timeframe, so old that even “The War” that they refer to is the First World War!
This is a humorous book about a boy called William. At one point, long ago, he was the most famous fictional boy created and these books (yes, there are tons of them and I have read many, but I will review only one here as they are all the same in style and tone – this review gives the flavour of what all those books are like) were very very popular.
William is the quintessential boy who is ‘bad‘ notwithstanding the title of the book here. He was dirty, always getting into mischief and scraps, and was about always looking for adventure. He was the de facto head of the Outlaws, a group of likeminded four boys that included Ginger, Henry and Douglas besides William himself.
Peppered in the story are Robert, William’s elder brother, and Ginger’s elder brother, who both were always falling in and out of love every other week with a pretty girl (yes, the same one all the time, so that they had to fight for her attention) much to the disgust of the Outlaws, who cannot see any point in, first, going after a girl and second, actually fighting for her attention!
There were enough escaped lions, convicts, mental asylum patients, recuperating actors and others to supply an endless source of adventure for the Outlaws.
The stories are simple, and if you are in the right frame of mind and understand the personalities of the characters, quite funny in their way. But do not expect a P.G Wodehouse style storytelling fun. No large scale coincidences here, and the plots are quite simple in comparison.
Each chapter is a separate incident, so the whole book (and all the other books) are really like a collection of short stories.
A moderately good read, if you like these sort of things, and do not mind a bit of old style story telling (No there are no thee or thou in them, the language is modern enough but the style is old fashioned).
I will give it a 5/10
— Krishna