Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass

by Russell Mardell (Goodreads Author)

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 23 ratings · 13 reviews

Welcome to Mewlish Lull - the sort of town you pass through on your way to somewhere else without even noticing it exists. This debut collection of short fiction presents a bizarre portrait of a world just to the left of reality. In twelve stories and with a cast of oddball characters, through the most absurd of comedies, the darkest of nightmares and those quiet moments o...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published November 19th 2010 by Troubador Publishing

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

A Book My Father Gave Me

78th out of 263 books — 203 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 349)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Oct 30, 2011 Anna-louise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-favourites

Ok so where to start? The beginning is probably good I suppose. So from the outset I loved this, the first story is on a level with how I think and this is indeed rare! Usually my way of thinking is kept behind a fake smile and sometimes a nod.

So I was happily reading until I get to Four Doors Down this is where I decided to hate the writer for making me think so bloody much! Never has a man done so and I wasn't a fan! Anyway i decided to get over it and found that this is a thought provoking w...more Ok so where to start? The beginning is probably good I suppose. So from the outset I loved this, the first story is on a level with how I think and this is indeed rare! Usually my way of thinking is kept behind a fake smile and sometimes a nod.

So I was happily reading until I get to Four Doors Down this is where I decided to hate the writer for making me think so bloody much! Never has a man done so and I wasn't a fan! Anyway i decided to get over it and found that this is a thought provoking well written story and I was hooked. You would not be let down by the descriptions in this story, in any for that matter, you can actually feel like you are there. I found that he makes something so odd so believable that you can imagine it happening to you and to be honest I’d rather not go through what was happening in this little story! ugh to get so confused just reading it pfft! Hell noes do i want to live it!

Another I loved was Silent Bombs falling on Green Grass, I had to finish this story the odd thing is I don’t know why because I hadn't a flipping clue what was going on (in all the stories no bloody idea) I think I kind of related to the feelings the man had in large people filled area, I got anxious reading this! In the end I totally would do the same as that man just hide and see what the hell comes from it.

I can't really pick a favourite all made me feel something as strong as the other although I can pick one I didn't love and that was Ascension only from a personal point of view I’m not very people focused and this is dialogue and I wanted something to just break it up. I'm sure I’ve missed the point of the story as well all the others but for me but I guess that not a bad thing.

This book has moments of all of us, stuff that we wish we really could say and do. In the deepest parts of us we really do think like that. People aren't brilliant we have so many down sides and life is more then celebrity and cliques. Real people have problems and they can be dark!

It’s good to read something that doesn't hide behind a fake smile and sometimes a nod.

Peoples you must read this book!!!
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jul 08, 2011 Renee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: indies

Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass is, simply put, the best book I have read in as far back as I can remember.

I'll admit that it took me several sittings to make it through the first 20 or so pages. Everything about them seemed a little wrong, including the way the words fit together on the page. It was almost uncomfortably foreign but in the long run that made it even more intriguing. I'm the kind of reader who tends to plow through a book, skipping anything that doesn't seem pertinent. With...more Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass is, simply put, the best book I have read in as far back as I can remember.

I'll admit that it took me several sittings to make it through the first 20 or so pages. Everything about them seemed a little wrong, including the way the words fit together on the page. It was almost uncomfortably foreign but in the long run that made it even more intriguing. I'm the kind of reader who tends to plow through a book, skipping anything that doesn't seem pertinent. With Silent Bombs, it is impossible to skip anything because it is impossible to know what is an important detail from what isn't. Skip the wrong details and you'll be hopelessly lost, read them all and you may still be. I found it difficult to take my time and even more difficult to realize that these stories would not stand up to my analytical nature. Mardell does not hide behind a saccharine smile and therefore his intent is transparent in its analysis of the human condition and disregard of societal norms.

Silent Bombs in made up of twelve stories tied together by their setting, a town called Mewlish Lull. Four of the stories are "Notes from Mewlish Lull" and they provide a bit of cohesion to the narrative, although a couple of the other stories may have been connected as well. I sometimes found myself lost in the jumble of characters, though this fit the setting and sense that we are all lost and places like Mewlish Lull are stops along the way to finding ourselves. There is a general feeling about the human condition that there is a cloud to every silver lining, with just a bit of white peaking though. Some stories vilify humanity while others merely expose its weakness, the reason behind the wall built to defend us from our feelings. Most of the stories are sparse in dialogue while one is completely made up of it. Inconsistencies like this add the kind off-kilter charm that would often be tossed aside by a publisher in the process of fitting a rather oblong story into a staunchly square box. They are a testament to the benefits of independent publishing.

Mardell deals in the dynamics of human relationships in the same way the Twilight Zone did the dimensions of time and space. His stories have a honest reality to them but everything is slightly off, just a bit more jaded. The characters feel like people you know but often wish you didn't. They say the things we want to but can’t allow ourselves in polite conversation. Mardell does what Carolyn Chute has been toted as doing in showing the less-desirable’s point of view only with a far superior mastery of the language and an awareness of the mask of normalcy. Silent Bombs is not normal, ordinary or plain. It is strange, quirky, offensive and hilarious. This is not a book that everyone will enjoy but, for the right reader, it is an escape from the mass produced and homogenized "literature" we are practically force fed these days.(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 16, 2011 Martin Belcher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Russell has created a book of twelve very strange but compelling stories interconnected to the weird town of Mewlish Lull.

My favourites are "Farringdon", a story of a man called Joe visiting London and disappearing down the tube to find himself trying to avoid eye contact with fellow travellers on a packed Circle Line Underground train whilst trying his best to follow a hilarious training manual "London Queue Etiquette & Tube Law" by Corporal Billings. Its ending is quite unexpected!

"Four...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 05, 2011 Dolly Delightly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Russell Mardell makes me laugh. Firstly, as someone who is very funny. But, secondly, and more importantly, as a writer. This is significant, because funny people aren’t always funny on paper. Mardell is. He says his “shit social skills” is why he “became a writer.” He’s being modest. He also says he imagines I swear a lot. He’s right. In fact, I lost count of the number of times I animatedly exclaimed “f***” while reading his work. Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass is Mardell’s first book, a...more Russell Mardell makes me laugh. Firstly, as someone who is very funny. But, secondly, and more importantly, as a writer. This is significant, because funny people aren’t always funny on paper. Mardell is. He says his “shit social skills” is why he “became a writer.” He’s being modest. He also says he imagines I swear a lot. He’s right. In fact, I lost count of the number of times I animatedly exclaimed “f***” while reading his work. Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass is Mardell’s first book, a loosely assembled collection of reticulated sketches involving a dragoon of crackpot characters; cullions, lurchers, drifters, human blunders, women who keep men in their bathtubs and other vermicular personalities. The setting, a town of undisclosed purlieus called Mewlish Lull, indirectly connects the characters together as their individual weird and peculiar tales fall into context through linkage to a place that belongs on a “government target board” rather than “a postcard” and supposedly “Kills Its Kids”. Occasionally, perhaps, that could be justified but generally it’s not right, is it. Thus when in the opening story, Notes from Mewlish Lull – Rain, a nameless narrator arrives to be greeted by the infanticide-denoting epitaph one gets the distinct impression that things are a little awry. This notion is further fortified by his encounters with the locals; a dapper mendicant living in the underpass, a pusillanimous shopkeeper and a “suspiciously clingy” woman called Jennifer with a gimp in her bathtub.

All of the above is enough to give you a head-spin, while also leaving you wondering about the man in the tub and why the anonymous narrator, who resurfaces throughout, is so keen to jilt his old life. These ruminations are quickly dispelled by the opening pages of Armand Gull Drinks Whiskey. As I told Mardell immediately after reading the story, it made me snigger so much on my morning commute the bus almost toppled over. It opens with the following: “Edward James Lynton Tatchford (Tatch, to his friends, of which he counted five, and Teddy, to his mother) had been in the shack on the beach, battling against the side effects of winter for five days and was starved of company. The fevered and slightly bizarre tramp he had met on the third day had run away and left a shoe in one corner. It was the sort of shoe that looked like it had fallen from a cartoon and he was frightened it would start talking to him.” And it gets more absurd with every page, but also more perspicacious as a pragmatic explanation of a man being driven to extremes by the dross of a nine-to-five life. Mardell’s writing has a visual quality, possibly due to his background in film and theatre, and shows a penchant for post-modern aesthetic. Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass contains a valorisation of individual subjective experiences relayed through tracing of each character’s consciousness and all its contingent manifestations. It is quietly epistemological, and inquires into the practicalities of perception over objective universal truths. But it has a few of those too.

The collection of stories has no steadfast linear narrative apart from the intermittent commentary of the unnamed protagonist who embarks on a new life in this rather peculiar town, because as he says: “Someone I might have loved had told me to grow up. So here I was growing up.” The weird exordium into town is followed by employment with “Stan the white van man” who dispenses supererogatory clichés, chats “casual horrors” and bleats about the “bleedin’ southern liberals”. The situation is further complicated by Jennifer’s unplanned pregnancy and her reluctant involvement with the pestilential gimp. The narrator, who unwittingly becomes part of the scene, is a fellow jaded by the doggedly mundane modern world, yet his cynical transcendence of sentiment is a defence mechanism, a fear of being human, since being human is a painful business. This is reflected through his own recollections of past and lost loves, disappointments, endless shifting from town to town, and a sort of entropy defined by taking everything, even the biggest of life’s surprised, with a “non-committal, suits-all occasions” smile. Yet it feels as if he has embarked on a search for something, in both a metaphysical and spiritual sense, for something that remains elusive. The protagonist is trapped within himself, by his past and yet estranged from it, a sort of middle class paradigm, which propels him at one point to conclude that maybe he “really is pointless.” Not an uncommon thought. I’ve had a few of those myself.

Mardell polarises the problems of contemporary society by illuminating various stereotypes, occasionally to fetishistic lengths, through irony and absurdist tactics thereby highlighting the inanity of our uber-sophisticated modern world. His work is at once earnest, mocking and insightful, but as Mardell himself says he likes “readers to make their own conclusions, superimpose their own emotions and logic” and take from his “slightly skewed reality” whatever is “pertinent to them”. And yet his skewed reality seems to make perfect sense, as for example when the narrator speaks to a stranger in the park watching a kid fly a kite and the stranger says: “Simple pleasures…It is the continual search for more and more diverse gratifications that stunts us as humans. The technological age with all its undoubted wonders has also always made us look for more. Always look for better. The next big thing,” when in truth it is the small and infinitesimal things, such as flying a kite, that make all the difference. The chapter, Notes from Mewlish Lull – Smiler Desmond is Dead, charting the interaction between the two men, reveals a different, more open and self-reflective side to the narrator who has “spent years cultivating strong defences.” The stranger, a once famous but now washed-up comedian, at one point says: “I look at so many of my peers now, pompous people who would drone on and on about ‘their art’, about ‘their craft’, now whoring themselves out to ridicule just so they can cling on to the fake life that has hidden them from the real world so long ago. Prostituting for a pay packet that keep their pneumatically-titted wife in handbags and spray tan. I dry hump a tuba, but somehow I think I have more dignity.” A germane point about modern day culture and its histrionic preoccupation with the superficial? I think so.

The stories are thematically alike in that they aim to reveal something about human nature, like the one called Farrington about a boy making his second voyage to London “and the first without the safety net of being a school trip”. His mother’s words ring in his ears as he gets into town and remembers: “Nothing but freaks and deviants, gangsters and whores, terrorist and bankers!” To set him up for his sojourn to see his girlfriend his mother enrols him in a preparatory obstacle course with the words,“You go to London, you go prepared,” where he is subjected to the dithyrambs of one Corporal Max Billings, a man with a “questionable military background”. Mardell exaggerates the concept of moral panic to the nth degree to reflect and decry the typical small-town mentality which is surprisingly prevalent to this day. An overview of human nature is also the subject of the title story which captures a day in the life of a misanthropic OCD-ridden fellow who sits on a park bench smoking one of his 10 daily cigarettes waiting for something interesting to happen. But when it finally does, he feels isolated and ignored by the people with “dull metal objects adorning their heads” gathering together in the park, and retreats to the safe-haven of his flat, concluding dejectedly: “Years of itching away from people and living alone on fun wealth and bleary-eyed despondency that had finally cracked its solitary goal. They had left me to it.” By and large Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass depends on the reader to construct a larger narrative from a number of subtle hints, incidental details and scattered chronology while it blends fact, scene and portraiture into a compendium of misanthropy and bizarre eventualities. Interestingly, London provided much of the inspiration for the setting of Mewlish Lull. The rest Mardell attributes to the art of fiction although he does concede that there are “certain nods and hints” which are true to life.

Born in Cambridge in 1975, a place where back in those days all the “mammas went to unleash their children to the world”, Mardell grew up in Salisbury and thereafter “bummed around various places” including Bristol where he settled for a while in “an attic flat” and began writing and “living through the night on coffee and cigarettes”. He has had a variegated career from working in a video shop to working as a writer and director in independent film as well as penning five plays, some of which he directed and produced. He is currently writing a new book when taking time off from being cajoled into reminiscing about a poetry prize he won as a youngster for a poem about a hippo that died in transit due to ineffectual humans. I thought it a rather intriguing premise, as is the one behind Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass. Personally, however, I think I would have liked it to have revolved exclusively around the down-and-out narrator but perhaps there’s a reason why it does not. Perhaps that was the writer’s intention but, whatever it is, I think Mardell is right when he says “the only thing that matters is what the reader gets” from one’s work , the emotion it solicits, the reaction it evokes “be it good or bad.”(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 16, 2012 Deana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Silent Bombs falling on Green grass is a wonderfully peculiar collection of twelve short stories that center around the small town of Mewlish Lull, a place I don’t know that I would ever want to visit. I want to use phrases like misanthropically quirky, offensively clever and weirdly engrossing to describe this book. I can honestly say that it is unlike anything you have ever read. It is a wonderfully dark and funny collection of stories that will leave you wondering what odd little world you ha...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 02, 2012 Liz at Fictional Candy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: collection

Before I began reading this story, I knew this book would be unlike anything I’ve read thus far. And I was completely correct in that assumption.

First, the cover. I’m in love with this cover. So many covers have such hard lines, such defined themes, that this one really is something that is going to make you think. You have to look at it to figure out all of the shapes. The vagueness of it all is just beautiful. And then you open the book and start to read.

Silent Bombs Falling On Green Grass c...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 11, 2012 Fox rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, first-reads, own, short-stories, 2012, fantasy, sci-fi, favorites

I was given this book by the author, Russell Mardell, when he had an extra left from the Goodreads First-reads giveaway. So, I suppose I won this one through the give-away. Once more, I am extremely happy that I had a chance to read this book.

The comment on the back reads "Long live misanthropy!" and the book is comprised of twelve short-stories that take place in a "town a bit to the left of reality." Mewlish Lull, said town, is indeed just a bit to the left of reality. The stories occupy the s...more

1 like · like · see review

May 30, 2011 Adlad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Tired of the "run of the mill" books I have read of late (usally Crime and a bit of Si Fi), I decided to give this one a try after being recomended by a friend - Wow what a great read!
Once it gets started and you get into the characters you find youself lost in the strange world of Mewlish Mull, a place where you want to keep reading and reading and turn the pages quickly with anticipation of whats is going to happening next.
Its not often you get ingrossed in a book that makes your pulse incre...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 18, 2012 Thomas Walsh rated it 5 of 5 stars

I enjoy discovering new Authors and often 'delve into the unknown' by purchasing recommendations from a couple of Book lover sites I regularly visit and review on - GoodReads being a favourite.
Anyway, this particular book struck me as different as it is a book of short stories. I am used to reading (and sometimes struggling with!) longer novels. The idea of having a book I could dip into, read a story and then dip back into at varying intervals appealed for many reasons.
I was not disappointed!!...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 26, 2011 David Richardson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book for free from the Goodreads first-read giveaway. Some of these stories are really weird but most are pretty good.

like · see review

Dec 30, 2012 Morisca Cristian rated it 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading it. I recommend it. I got this book through Goodreads First Reads.

like · see review

Oct 28, 2012 Marie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass sounded like a different book so I decided to enter the first-reads giveaway and to my suprise I was a winner! This book is a series of short stories about a variety of characters living in Mewlish Lull, a unique town. It was an interetsing read.

like · see review

Dec 03, 2012 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

1 like · like · see review

Mar 07, 2013 Mike Collins marked it as to-read

Feb 27, 2013 Meggie marked it as to-read

Dec 23, 2012 jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dec 10, 2012 Kay marked it as to-read

Shelves: books-won

Dec 09, 2012 Geri marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Vicki marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Catherine Snyder marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Kyle marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Bailey Walker marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Jennifer Benoit marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Carol marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Jody marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Lorraine marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Pamela Vaughn marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Caitlin marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Melissa marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2012 Kimy Hoefs marked it as to-read

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (1)

Genres

Short Stories

2 users

See top shelves...

About Russell Mardell

Russell is a novelist and playwright based in the south west of England. His debut collection of short fiction 'Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass' was published in 2010 through Matador. His first full novel 'Stone Bleeding' is published in 2012

More about Russell Mardell...

Books by Russell Mardell

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Silent Bombs Fall...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass
avg rating	preview: Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass Goodreads rating: 4.26 (23 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9841094-silent-bombs-falling-on-green-grass?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328009682l/9841094.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9841094-silent-bombs-falling-on-green-grass?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass by Russell Mardell[/url]

Silent Bombs Falling on Green Grass

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

combineOther Editions (1)

Genres

About Russell Mardell

Books by Russell Mardell

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Silent Bombs Fall...

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (1)