Book Review: Mr. Men #6 - Mr. Bump

2:40p.m., Mon 7 Feb 2011

Mr. Bump is easily one of the most endearing, lovable characters that Roger Hargreaves ever created.

The Bump narrative is ostensibly one of slapstick. One can trace Bump's lineage back to the masters of silent comedy Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton through Frank Spencer and Mr. Bean and on to Aardman's Shaun The Sheep.

Mr. Bump's life consists of being injured via the act of trying to do the right thing, It's not a story where the element of surprise is important - when Bump picks up a ladder, attempts to leap on the back of a moving bus or picks up a hammer we know what's going to happen, the joy is in watching it unfold, added joy comes with the variety of comedy bandages that are wrapped around the afflicted areas.

And while it's easy to warm to Bump's positive attitude in the face of the many horrors that life can throw at him, it's additionally heart-warming to see that the author has taken this funny little blue man to his heart too. God loves a trier and it seems that Hargreaves, very much the deity in Mr. Men land, does too. So while it seems that Mr. Bump's career seems to consist of a long string of short-lived and disastrous low-level menial jobs, he is shown to live in a huge (probably three-bed) mansion with a huge and well-kept garden. It's far and away the most impressive abode that we have seen in the Mr. Men world (in book 10 Mr. Silly is shown to live in a architecturally brutal modernistic structure, an admirable and ambitious design statement, but it's a relatively small bachelor pad rather than a sprawling family home).

Bump is portrayed as a postman, bus-conductor and farm labourer among other low-paid positions that surely couldn't afford him the means to buy and upkeep such a pile, yet Hargreaves seems fit to house Mr. Bump here. Maybe Bump is from privileged stock, maybe he's won the pools or robbed a bank, we can't know, but the message here is that hard-work and perseverance pays dividends.

The book also concludes on a note that provides solace to those whose feel they have yet to find their niche in life. Despite all the injuries and breakages, the calamities and the humiliations, Bump finds a place i the universe. A place where he can perform a valuable task and be of value to the community despite a disability that might beat lesser mortals. The joy on Bump's face as he revels in his new job provides the best ending any book could ever have.