“He’s going to be a bit grumpy.”The fact that the Snowman book and film have merged in the public imagination is a further source of frustration. I don’t call it poetry because it’s not.” Drawn entirely in soft grey pencil, it begins with the shared domesticity of old age and the joys of a daily walk (“Great clots of primroses everywhere! Everything takes so bloody long when you’re old. Illustration: Raymond Briggs“I think you’re a bit obsessed with your parents,” accuses his contradictory alter ego Prodnose, who pops up throughout the book telling Briggs off for being bad-tempered or a dirty old man. And once you reach old age yourself, as he quotes from Muriel Spark’s novel Memento Mori, it’s like living on a battlefield, with friends either going or gone.

Source: The Guardian December 21, 2019 10:52 UTC