Customer Reviews

Pobby and Dingan

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kellyanne Williamson has two very special friends, Pobby and Dingan. Pobby, the boy, likes to dance in lightning storms, has a limp and can walk through walls. Dingan is the pretty and smart one who likes to read books over your shoulder, play rigaragaroo, has an opal in her bellybutton and is a pacifist. They both like Kellyanne better than anyone else and they're both imaginary. One day while Kellyanne is at school, her dad takes Pobby and Dingan with him to work in the opal mines of Lightning Ridge, Australia. When he comes home that evening, Kellyanne asks innocently, where Pobby and Dingan are. How could he forget to bring them home? And though they rush back to the mines, calling and searching, Pobby and Dingan are gone. Kellyanne is convinced that they're dead and lost forever. By the next day, poor grief-stricken Kellyanne has fallen ill. She can't eat, is running a fever and over time begins to fade away. Ashmol, her older brother, now takes it upon himself to find Pobby and Dingan and enlists the help of the entire town, because he realizes that Kellyanne is dying of a broken heart and will never get well until they are found..... Ben Rice's first novel is a small, spare, very gentle story about the power of believing in the sometimes unbelievable. His eloquent, expressive writing and beautifully drawn characters bring this story to life, and you'll begin to see and believe in Pobby and Dingan yourself. A very charming, very poignant novel full of insight, humor, wisdom and the triumph of the human spirit, Pobby and Dingan is a book that shouldn't be missed.

What a lovely, quirky, touching book. I read it in a couple of sittings and have already started buying copies to give to friends. Here are the basics. A girl in an Australian mining town has two imaginary friends named Pobby and Dingan. One day, her dad asks if he can take them out for the day--and he loses them! The girl is so overcome with sadness that she starts getting sicker and sicker. So her brother begs everyone in town to help him find Pobby and Dingan before his sister winds up in the hospital. Soon absolutely everyone is looking high and low for two kids who don't exist. There's a lot more to the novel--a court case, a funeral, etc--but you're better off coming to it as clean as possible. "Pobby and Dingan" is spare, funny, poignant--and wonderfully childlike. The novella's only 90 pages or so, but the publisher was right to print it alone, rather than as part of a short story collection. No one who reads "Pobby and Dingan" could ask for anything more.

I picked this up even before it was published (at a trade show) and it was the loveliest thing I had come across in a long while. Shimmering prose, unexpected twists, and it makes your throat ache to read how real these imaginary friends are. Just picturing the opal in Pobby (or is it Dignan's?) belly button makes me smile. It is a strange length--but as the other reviewers have noted, it's the length it should be, perfect for itself. There SHOULD be "Save Pobby and Dignan" t-shirts, as the recent NY Times Book Review suggested. The other reviews tell you enough about the plot--so I'll just say that I've been telling everyone I know who likes books about this one. It's a rare find and I hope it takes off the way it deserves.

Without doubt his is an astonishing debut novel that I strongly compel you to rush out and buy today. Its so refreshing to discover such brilliant creativity, written in a genre outside that of twenty something writers all too often pre-occupied with their own city dweller neuroses. Set far, far away, in the real life opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales in contemporary Australia, from the very first words the reader is engaged in a great adventure that is difficult to put down from beginning to end. Revolving around the Williamson family, the story is narrated through the convincingly colloquial voice of our hero Ashmol Williamson, the only son of a weather beaten, hard up (but ever hopeful), tinny swilling opal miner, and his rather `too good for this town' English wife. Pobby and Dingan are the imaginary friends of Ashmol's eight-year-old sister Kellyane -and they've just gone missing! As his sister begins to wither with worry, Ashmol realizes to put things right he must set out on a dual-purpose quest: To find the imaginary friends and therefore make his sister well again, and in doing so restore the good name of the Williamson family (which has taken a bit of a beating of late). To do this he must rally the whole town, and make them believe that the imaginary friends really do exist.

If you are human, you will be seduced by the fairytale qualities of the narrative, and charmed by the endearing storyline. It is easy to allow all this to hypnotically wash over you, but in doing so you might come away with the impression that this is a kids' book. Far from it! On the surface this might appear to be the case, but dig a little deeper, and you will reveal what is actually a serious piece of literature that explores in many fascinating ways the theme of absence. Ordinarily, absence might be created by a deep sense of loss, and would be articulated with rather grey images and emotions of relentless mournful sorrow. What makes this book so special is that Ben Rice surpasses this predictable definition and shows us that absence touches many aspects of our lives, spiritually and physically. He does this by writing consistently good chapter after chapter of atmospheric scenes full of colour, humour, and some very eccentric local characters. A poet's discipline is at play, and it is true to say that not a single word is wasted on us.

For this reason alone, dismiss spiteful criticism of this novella's length (less than 100 pages and only available in hardback) to say that it ought to be longer is absurd; as ridiculous as the idea of re-building Rachel Whiteread's Turner Prize winning House - The book is what it is, absorbing, moving, beautifully written and perfectly formed. I guarantee that if you buy it you will treasure it forever.

This lovely novella tells the story of Kellyanne Williamson's love for her imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan, and how her brother exhibits his love for her after these *friends* are lost. Despite his exasperation with his sister's behavior, Ashmol does his best to find her invisible friends and to help her recover from her mysterious but desperate illness.

Although small in size, this book gives the reader a great deal of information about Australia and about opal mining, using authentic vocabulary and the artless, wry, and down-to-earth voice of the young Ashmol. This young man is wise beyond his years in the way of life lived in the opal-mining area of Lightning Ridge. His voice was a refreshing change from many contemporary angst-ridden narrators.

How can you search for imaginary friends when you can't see them? I think that Kellyanne would tell you that you just have to believe. But it ends up being her unbelieving brother Ashmol that gets the town to believe when Pobby and Dingan get lost at the mines. Pobby and Dingan is a sweet surprise, a fun story book that you might read with your older kids or a gift for a friend who has gotten ....... into the corporate world without air. It's short, it's imaginative and unpredictable even given it's length. I loved that the book was set in austrailia and utilizes aussie terms like pom and fairdenkum and that I could listen to the accent between the pages. It's a story book, nothing more nothing less. I wouldn't anxiously await a next book by Ben Rice, but, fairdenkum, this one was a super surprise.

The tale of what happens to the town of Lightening Ridge, New South Wales when little Kellyanne Williamson's father loses his daughter's imaginary friends in Australia's opal mines is one of the most touching and humorous tales I've read in a long time. It's unfortunate that this book hasn't received more attention - Ben Rice has somehow managed to pack more life and emotion into the 94 pages of his debut novel than can be found in most of what's on current bestsellers lists. Pobby and Dingan may be imaginary but I'll never forget them.

I read a review of this book and was intrigued. After reading the book I was curious about others impressions and insights and wanted to talk to them about the book. I gave it to several staff members and a bunch of patients of mine. Responses started flowing in. Many gave me 1 and 2 page written responses to the book. It's only 90 some pages long but provokes many thoughts and questions.

Ben Rice's charming and poignant novel has only one potential drawback, it's length, which may confuse would-be readers. Get past it! This story is just the right size, and beautifully captures the remote minimg town of Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, the opal capital of Australia. The town is inhabited by among others, the imaginary friends of Kellyanne Williamson. The story is narrated by Kellyanne's older brother, Ashmol through whose view and voice we meet the rest of the Williamsons and many of their fellow residents. The novel will serve to remind us very sweetly and gently that the inaginary is very real indeed.

Eight year-old Kellyanne Williamson has always had imaginary friends and most of the townsfolk of Lightening Ridge have catered to her illusion. Up until this time her brother Ashmol has teased her, and called her a fruit loop; but that is all about to change when Kellyanne's father, an opal miner in New South Wales, takes Pobby and Dingan on an outing to the mine. After forgetting Pobby and Dingan at the mine little Kellyanne is traumatized at the loss of her imaginary friends. What follows is a tale so imaginative I started to wonder if Pobby and Dingan really did exist. I suppose it is all a matter of perspective. This is an interesting story and a quick read. It leaves me wondering about the mind of an author that would write such a tale. This book was a page-turner and different than anything I have ever read. Kelsana 4/04/01