All Quiet on the Orient Express

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a brief spell of rain, but not until this morning did I realize I was the only visitor left. All that remained was an expanse of grass marked out in yellowing squares. The absence of other paying customers probably explained beyond them lay the upper slopes of the fells. The whole place was bathed in sunlight, but I knew after yesterday's rain that it wasn't always like this. spread everywhere. Then I recalled the words of the dairyman when he said, `I'll just put this a bit nearer.' I hadn't really taken any notice of what he was doing, but he must have moved the tin. I was sure Of course, it doesn't happen. His protestations grow weaker and weaker with each of Mr. Parker's polite requests, until finally he doesn't even bother to resist. After a short time, a pattern is established: ''I suddenly realized

summer, and the locals would surely be used to outsiders by now. Yet just because a stranger was painting someone's gate, he immediately came under local scrutiny.

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Mills has also written two books of very short stories: Once in a Blue Moon and Only When the Sun Shines Brightly for Acorn Books. His experience as a bus driver informed the content of his 2009 novel The Maintenance of Headway, the title of which refers to keeping buses equally spaced on their routes. His 2011 novel A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In depicts a kingdom whose king has gone missing without explanation, leaving an absurdist realm "lost in an English fairy-tale world." [6] In ''All Quiet on the Orient Express,'' Mills revisits the struggles of the downtrodden. But this new novel is more a parable of entrapment in which devious occurrences force the unnamed narrator out of his dreamy passivity and into The tradition of sinister English villages and their tight-lipped, staring inhabitants is an old one, and a classic gothic crutch. Here, our somewhat gormless hero (or is he?) slides beneath the surface of life in this place as easily as another man might slide beneath the surface of a lake. The chain of obligation, of nothing else to do, drags him under, and he finds himself staying on, and on, for a week, then another, then 'just until Christmas'. He ceases to be a tourist, an oddity, a burden to bear, and begins to be a member of the crowd, a teammate, an odd-job man, a friend.

Lake District where the young man's imaginings are foreshortened by an endless series of small tasks assigned to him by the quietly sinister Tommy Parker. The message of this book seems to be that outsiders are tolerated up until a point, but have to earn the trust of the community into which they come by a process of trial and error. They are expected to deduce how they should act on the basis of how people treat them and react to the things that they do. This makes for a memorable message that may not be quite normal, but is feasible under certain circumstances, i.e. the ones in this novel. There is also the message that bosses are not to be trusted running through not just this book, but all those that I have read by this author (this one, Screwtop Thompson and Other Tales and The Restraint of Beasts). He seemed content with this answer, and moved aside. Then he followed me into the shop and slipped behind the counter. Mills's style has been called "deceptively" simple. [8] His prose style is rhythmic, often repetitious, and his humour is deadpan. He favours short sentences, little description and a lot of dialogue. Mills has cited Primo Levi as a key influence. [9] Themes [ edit ] This new novel is definitely like his last: it is just as absorbing, darkly worrying and very, very funny. -- The Times, 18 September, 1999Nobody did, so after a few minutes spent gazing at the water I continued my journey along the shore. Finally, I arrived at the north end of the lake, passed through a kissing gate, and walked across a deserted The same sort of thing happened every time a vehicle went past on the public road. There wasn't much traffic, but occasionally someone would go by, and they always eased up a little to see who was painting and was at once dazzled by a powerful fluorescent light set above the wash basins. It shone on the white tiles and the whitewashed walls, making the place seem very stark and bare. When my eyes had become accustomed to Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2014-10-27 16:17:36.857297 Bookplateleaf 0005 Boxid IA1145720 City New York Donor