[If you haven't read The Book of Lost Things yet, don't read this--SPOILERS ABOUND!]
I do, it's true. I almost lost my love for Stephen King's Dark Tower books when he appeared as himself in the last parts of the epic. Last week, I had to put Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 down (instead of throwing it across the room; it was a library book) after discovering "R.P." was Mr. Powers himself. It's like the author wants to be patted on the head: now aren't YOU clever!
Granted, John Connolly is not David, the revealed author of The Book of Lost Things, but the text screams CLEVER CLEVER!!! at me. Also, DERISIVE! and CHILDISH! (Don't confuse that with childLIKE, a perfectly fine thing to have in a young-person's book.)
Alas, I am left puzzled. I still can't decide if I liked it or not. I didn't hate it, but it didn't ring any bells for me either. Technically, the book is published for adults (it won nominations for being a YA crossover) but it reads more like the sort of story an adult thinks hearkens back to oh-so innocent childhood. The stripped down narrative is merely a collection of snapshots from fractured fairy tales, most with pre-Victorian morbidness added back in--and then some. The portions of darkdark blood and guts did not mesh with the ridiculous bits, like the whole seven dwarfs scenario.
It frustrated me to no end how little the inhabitants of Fairyland/Dreamland/The Afterlife/whatever knew about their country. The first rule of fantasy is there must be rules--some logic, please! But a whole population of individuals who have no local or historical knowledge? Instead of rich characters, they become a whole lotta cutouts, reliant on what little of their personalities Connolly chose to include and what we know about them from general knowledge--Roland, for example. Here's a knight*** who cannot remember the order of kings and queens. And don't get me started on the dumb townspeople.
So David killed Rumpelstiltskin? Anansi? Coyote? Kokopelli? Loki? The Devil? Is all Heaven safe now--or was that Hell? Is the afterlife the stuff books are made of? Where is everyone else who died? Ack!
Why does the woman in the tower want David? Was she calling the whole time? Is she modelled after a fairyland character and I'm totally missing it?
Did anyone else know the answer to the troll's riddle? Hello! Labyrinth!
There's the whole copout with the plane crash, (COME ON--WHAT ARE THE ODDS???) meaning one could legitimately finish the book thinking David was just a nutty, dreamy man with an imagination and troubled childhood. (The plane crash also led me to believe David was in a Donnie Darko situation, dead and just ambling around the empty spaces in his mind--something he asks Roland on page 208.) On a whole, the book was too neat and tidy. David never has to work hard at anything; it all comes to him rather easily. All natural, no real effort or sacrifice. The Woodsman has Great Timing at the end, of course.
Maybe I've read too many fairy tales and fantasy stories to enjoy this rehash?
The end left a sour taste in my mouth. Not a bad book, but it had the potential to be better.
***Incidentally, Roland is the main character of Stephen King's Dark Tower books, as in R. Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." But he's a different sort of knight, one with pistols slung around his hips and grit in his teeth.
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6 comments:
I don't have a problem with self-referential books as I do with stories that already exist, but they author adds a new twist. I was really into the book at the beginning and then "The Woodsman's First Tale" or aka "Little Red Riding Hood" and I got frustrated. I convinced myself that it was allowed in this situation because David's mom had told him about stories coming alive and how "they needed it." So I thought maybe this is where the story was going. But with each new encounter that David had I just assumed it was some fairytale that I had never heard of before because John Connolly could not come up with a fairytale on his own.
There were parts of the book that I really liked and other parts that I could have done with out. I was disappointed that the entire story didn't tie together at the end as well as I would have hoped for. The idea that Jonathan's and David's imagination being the creator of the creatures didn't really explain everything or clear up everything. Him hearing his mother's voice to lure him in the land in the first place was not really cleared up as well.
I also thought the book went on and on and on and on…. The climax was not all that exciting for how long it took to get there and fairly predictable once you got there.
Jeanne, I also thought the whole "stories come alive" concept would be a major part of the book, like how the books kept talking to David; my initial thought was they had a direct connection with Fairyland, or their mix-up with David's books was the reason for the odd versions of fairy tales.
David ends up being this sort of wise man striding through Fairyland knowing all the "tales." I think another reason the book bothered me was too much of it depended on David's knowledge of stories (and Jonathan's?). It never seemed like a real place (see my above rant on lack of history).
Jonathan's fear of wolves brought on the killer wolves, but, on reflection, this reminds me of Ghostbusters, where Ray's fear of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man results in havoc for New York.
I, too, was disappointed with the book because I absolutely loved the beginning (mothers dying aside, which is never high on my list). The writing was wonderful! "Without a human voice to read [stories] aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world" (3--and, yes, I cannot help but cite). ... "The stories in books hate the stories contained in newspapers" (9), "After her death, he tried to avoid these old tales, for they were linked too closely to his mother to be enjoyed" (10)--this is great writing! The sentences are so well crafted, and the opening chapters seemed so intriguing, that it actually took me a while to realize that the book was not going to go back to that level of intrigue, both in the writing and in the story.
(I admit that part of my love for the very beginning is because it reminds me of my own mom's affinity for books. She's the one who taught me to stay up until 3am to finish reading a great book. So I do identify with the beginning on several levels.)
So, yes, I think Connolly did a poor job in keeping the reverance for these stories and for reading much beyond the entrance to fairyland. What is the message? Books are scary? Fairy tales are evil? Yes, I know there is a lot there about growing up and "becoming a man" (and one could do an entirely separate critique on how many things he has to kill in order to become this man), but everything just seemed so forced. At the beginning we had imagination and intrigue, and at the end he was just explaining what everything meant without giving us the chance to guess anything. And the kingdom was saved so quickly! Sarah, I hadn't picked up on the problem that the villagers didn't know anything about their country, but you're right about that. They could have helped saved the kingdom in a kind of repayment for David saving their town, but instead the wolves just got scared and ran away.
One last gripe: such a cool title! Too bad that it didn't really connect or make us want to read again!
Beth, I don't know what kind of message he was going for regarding books or fairy tales--and how those relate to the Afterlife or ??? Argh!
That's three unimpressed readers so far...
Sarah already knows how I feel about this book because I talked to her as I started reading it, and unfortunately my opinion didn't improve as I went along.
I had basically the same complaints you all did, boiling down to a general feeling that I was being asked to swallow an argument (fairy tales are DEEP and POWERFUL and ARCHETYPAL and other kinds of literature and books are merely distractions from the real thing) that I absolutely don't buy. I think Connolly set himself a difficult task: using the tales without letting them turn into the stuff of kindergarten modernizations. I think he failed.
Part of the problem is his endlessly annoying tone -- he seemed to be going for sly, subversive humor, but he mostly ended up sounding predictable and condescending, like a Terry Pratchett wannabe who thinks he's really clever. And I have to disagree with Beth, I'm afraid -- I don't think the writing was at all good. I found it labored and didactic, and the (lack of) characterization was absurd. I mean, I know he was dealing with cartoon-cutouts most of the time, but he could at least have made David a more fully-fleshed human being, or the Crooked Man a little more interesting.
Oh well. Our luck is bound to improve again soon!
Meera! We agree about ANOTHER book!!! (Ohno--Libby Koponen has gotten me on a exclamation point kick!!!) (You'll see) (!!!)
Ooh--Terry Pratchett. I've read two of his YA books but there is at least one more and I wouldn't mind rereading him anyhow.
Off to add him to the Wish List.
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