Gregor: The Underland
Chronicles by Suzanne Collins (2003-7)
Recommended
by Lizzie
Gregor looked up
into the inky black sky and then realised that, of course, there was no sky.
Welcome to the Underland,
situated miles and miles below the earth’s crust. Eleven-year-old New Yorker
Gregor falls through a grate in his apartment block’s laundry room one day and finds
himself there. Among the Underland’s bats, rats, mice, spiders, ants,
cockroaches, scorpions and moles – all gigantic versions of their Overland
cousins – are the humans, the Underlanders. Descended from a group of English
settlers in the seventeenth century, these people have physically and
culturally evolved to cope with the lack of light and the other conditions
underground, thus becoming mutant versions of ‘Overland’ humans.
So far, so
children’s fantasy literature (albeit with a squirt of H.G. Wells for good measure). But I knew
there’d be more...
After all, this
was Lizzie’s recommendation: she is one of the smartest, most grounded ladies
that Sheffield has ever seen. Lizzie was originally a work colleague. She and I
had two major interests in common: music (and especially the role of women in
music) and word games. Lizzie once got so good at Scramble her score was top
ten IN THE WORLD.
So far, so
acquaintance (albeit with a squirt of P.J. Harvey for good measure). But I knew there’d be more…
After I left
that job, Lizzie and I stayed friends; when she moved away from Sheffield,
settling in Exeter, I went down to visit her. I was fresh from writing Seasons They Change and skittish of
mind, and she had terrible toothache, but nevertheless it was simply lovely.
And then there was the Green Man Festival in 2011: we sat in the sun, playing
Scrabble, while folk music played in the background. A perfect storm of our
shared loves.
Lizzie asked if
it’d be alright to recommend a children’s book. I said of course it would. She
then asked if it’d be alright to recommend five
children’s books. Hence Gregor: The
Underland Chronicles, which comprises Gregor
The Overlander, Gregor And The Prophecy Of Bane, Gregor And The Curse Of The
Warmbloods, Gregor And The Marks Of Secret and Gregor And The Code Of Claw.
This quintet offers
up some of the most interesting – and downright dismal – themes I’ve ever
encountered in children’s literature. Where to start? How about ethnic cleansing?
Post-traumatic stress disorder? Colonial theft? State-based religious
fundamentalism? Or good old-fashioned child poverty?
The Underland is
not a stable place, as Gregor soon discovers. The humans – the colonists – made
sure of that when they bagged the best land for themselves. For centuries they
have lived uneasily alongside the other species, often explicitly oppressing
them, and finding justification for their superiority in a series of
prophecies. The underground city of Regalia shows off all the humans have achieved
but, to others, it is an offensive symbol of their arrogance. Prime among the
pissed-off are the rats.
The rats tend to
stick to random acts of violence against individual humans until they gain a
new leader, a ferocious white rat known as the Bane (and the power behind his
throne, the eloquent Twirltongue). In the first half of the Chronicles, Collins
expertly shows how relations between rats and humans degenerate and a full-scale
war escalates. And, as in real-life war, it’s not simply (or even mainly) about
show-stopping battles. For instance, the humans cut off the rats’ access to the
river where their main food source, fish, is located. They also deny the rats
access to medicine when a deadly bloodborne virus sweeps through the Underland.
The rats, for
their part, abuse a weaker species: the mice (the ‘nibblers’). Under the Bane’s
command, the rats commit vast acts of atrocity against them, including a mass
gas poisoning.
The mice were
rolling on the ground, pawing at the air, at their necks, their bodies wracked
with terrible spasms. ‘They can’t breathe! They’re suffocating!’
This
industrial-scale massacre of the mice has obvious parallels with the Nazi death
camps, something Ripred – a rat whose allegiances are often ambiguous, but who
has better relations with the humans – points out.
‘I thought they
would starve the nibblers, attempt to drown them perhaps. But this… this has no
precedent,’ said Nike.
‘This has too
much precedent,’ said Ripred, grimly.
Although the
militaristic matter in these books is
strong – both in the quality sense, and in the explicitness sense – equally
interesting for an adult reader is the treatment of disability and illness,
often as a result of the conflict. Collins doesn’t shy away from brutal
descriptions of injury but, unusually, she also gives room to how that person’s
subsequent life is affected. Mareth, a famous fighter, loses a leg in the third
book: but that is not the last we see of him.
The soldier
stood in the centre of the field, leaning on a crutch. The doctors had
fashioned a prosthetic device made of fishbone and leather for his missing leg,
but he was still in the process of learning to use it.
There is also
the impact on mental health. Gregor’s father was kept as a prisoner of war and,
on his return overland, experiences tremors, hallucinations, nightmares, and depression.
He retreats from society and is unable to work. The loss of his income,
combined with medical bills, means Gregor’s family (only just above the
breadline anyway) is thrown into real destitution. The grinding nature of this
– a mother who has to constantly work at low-paid jobs because she is desperate
for any work, the kids waking up never knowing if there’ll be enough food to
last through the day, the wearing of outdoor clothes indoors and still feeling
constantly cold… it’s told as unflinchingly as any blood-drenched Underland
battle is.
But yet, despite
all these sophisticated ideas, there’s no sense that Collins is writing
primarily for adults. Her style is direct and clear and, often, she will gently
explain a word or idea if she feels her young reader may not be familiar with
it. This never feels patronising; rather, she wants to make sure that the
dynamics and feelings she’s exploring are well-understood.
I know many
people who don’t agree with adults reading children’s books on principle. I’m
not among them, but I do think that if you’re an adult you should choose these
books carefully. For instance, last year, I re-read a couple of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers books. They disappointed
me; I found little more than simple nostalgia. And then I straightened myself
out, and said ‘of course they should
disappoint me. I’m not eleven any more.’
Gregor: The Underland Chronicles is different. I can well believe that those who read it at the age
of eleven - perhaps the ones whose charming fan art (like above) litters the internet - can return to it ten, twenty, fifty years later and find far more
than a wallow in their childhood. It’s a powerful work, dense with ideas about
the savagery of war and its real impact on people’s lives. And that, sadly, is
always relevant.
