Write your abstract here.In Peter Dickinson’s delightful and thought provoking
book, The Box of Nothing not only does
the shop that sells
‘nothing’ disappear, but so does James, the main character
- into an alternative world which is of the ‘nothing’
before the existence of the universe. That ‘nothing’
comprises the contents of the box, yet there is a very
strong material element here as James finds himself in an
alternative ‘dump’ world.
Rats inhabit the dump and James is rescued from the rat
patrol by an endearing character called the Burra. The
Burra has created itself from a number of different toys.
It had a toy donkey’s head and arms and legs from
completely different toys. But this is not the whole of the
Burra for this strange friendly creature has a group
consciousness that is all part of the home, which it has
built for itself. It is able to create, recreate and repair
itself using items from the dump. The Burra takes James to
this hideaway for safety from the rats.
The Burra’s ambiance is warm and welcoming, but this can
change; James is normally wrapped tenderly in a blanket,
(which is also the Burra) but when the aberrant computer is
first brought into the Burra’s consciousness, the blanket
pinions him down so he cannot move.
Eventually the computer
is absorbed, the amiability of the Burra is restored and
the computer contributes to the collective strength and
knowledge of the Burra. The Burra even becomes food for the
boy, in the form of cooked up burgers, and it cheerfully
explains that the burgers would rather be eaten than not.
James eventually decides to leave, and aided by the Burra
who recreates itself as a basket and balloon, made from
plastic carrier bags, has a bird’s eye view of rat city.
But he is captured and imprisoned and although he gets away
he still has to meet ferocious gulls and outmanoeuvre a
lizard.
The Burra are led by a joyful instinct to form a ‘Burra
universe.’ Whilst James does not know what this means, he
feels that there is a “kindliness” in the nature of this,
and the lizard must not win the search. The mysteries are
intriguing and are largely unexplained, but as James
returns to his own world, something that was wrong has now
been put right.