The wonderful thing about books and the labyrinth of ways in which we encounter them is that you never know when turning the first page that you may be starting something that will affect you and surprise you and enchant you. That something someone mentions in passing, a cover that caught your eye as you passed or even something you’re reading because you have to ends up being something you will love and remember forever fondly.
Such was the case of my experience encountering Ben Rice’s “Pobby and Dingan” (2000). It entered my life through the medium of being mandatory reading for one of my master’s courses. I left it to the last minute (Sunday evening with the seminar early Monday morning of course) and to be honest was really not in the mood to settle in to a book, purely deciding to get it out of the way as I saw it wasn’t that long. And yet I found myself being gently pulled into this world of harsh Australian outback, opal and people that don’t really exist.
That is the genius of “Pobby and Dingan.” It is not a spoiler to tell you that the two titular characters are imaginary, conjured in the mind of a lonely little girl, Kellyanne. This may already sound abstract and bizarre to you at this stage so when I tell you that the plot of the novella is Kellyanne’s brother, Ashmol, setting out to find the ‘missing’ imaginary friends of his sister, I’d imagine I’m losing you altogether. And yet Rice doesn’t lose you. Pobby and Dingan may not be seen but they are fully fleshed out, developed characters within the world of Lightning Ridge, the small mining community we find ourselves in. And where Rice truly excels is he delicately weaves into the background of this unconventional central narrative fantastic details of the grittier, adult reality that surrounds it. It’s nonsense wrapped in layers and layers of good sense.
And yet it’s the ‘nonsense’ that is where the real magic lies. We follow the same journey as Ashmol, from sceptics to believers and it’s amazing how easy it is to get carried along by the childish charm of it all, especially in times like these where there is a glaring lack of it around. Anyway, after all my reluctance, I found myself reading the final pages (no spoilers) and out of nowhere a genuine lump forming in my throat. I don’t think I’ve ever cried reading a book but my god this was the closest I’ve ever come and it took just under 100 pages to get me there. Give it a read if you’ve got a spare hour in your week. It’s just lovely, I promise.
George F Brown 