John Connolly - Book of Lost Things, The - 4

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PolarisDiB
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John Connolly - Book of Lost Things, The - 4

Post by PolarisDiB »

Book of Lost Things, The

Alright, so here's the thing. There's the Hero's Journey, and then there's this kind of new post-modern hero's journey fantasy style that's derived from it, a favorite of Neil Gaiman's in approach, which is to send a book-lover into a Hero's Journey wherein said book-lover uses his or her knowledge of the already existing fantasy memes to almost literally piece together understanding of the logic of the fantasy world he or she finds herself in, restore order to it, and then finally leave to go back to the real world--but always to return to the fantasy world as a preferable place than the real world. Always.

In some sense, there's always a psychological connection between a hero character who reads books and the actual reader who follows that character. "Wow, this character escapes from the world with books! So do I!" I think is the very basic way of describing it, though of course each individual reader might find something especially personal for him or herself. Nonetheless, these "readers go into fantasy lands" books feel, to me, like basically one big argument from the writer for the very act of consuming their art in the first place. Nothing wrong with that, for sure, but after so many of these books, the process is starting to weigh down in my mind, especially when these books end up being ultimately so similar in character as well as form. The main character, if a boy, is reserved and sensitive. If it's a girl, she's emotional and reactive. Both are blazing fires of hormones. These stories are coming-of-age stories, because after all the myths that they know and love are all about growth, change, and development. Campbell's Hero's Journey speaks of the Elixir that the Hero brings back to society, but in this modern coming-of-age tale, the Elixir tends to be maturity and wisdom, and half the time doesn't really seem to affect the actual goings-on with the real world, just the character's ability to handle them. It's suddenly a much more selfish and introspective tract.

Connolly's "The Book of Lost Things" marks a singular point, for me. It makes me aware of just how desperately needed a biting, and maybe even mean-spirited, parody of these books is needed. Perhaps said parody already exists, or maybe I should get to work writing one myself. At any rate, "The Book of Lost Things" is not bad by any means, and in fact I would really like to give a copy to my cousin for reading, since my cousin is really into fantasy books right now, but I did find it to be a little too knowing. Everything in this book is essentially a wink to the fantastic familiar. If a chimera had appeared, it would have been described as, "What David would call a chimera appeared." The general form of the story kept close to the pathways previously trundled by the genre, including the prerequisite Cave, Mentor, and various Thresholds, while the actual subject dealt mostly with adhering previous stories to a personal, self-ordained collage of influences. When you meet Snow White or "meet" Red Riding Hood, Connolly relies on your knowledge of the stories so that the variances of the story become significant to the plot. It honestly becomes quite pedantic.

However, what I really did like about this book, personally, was the attempt at a slightly more adult take. Connolly reveals a desire, in some ways, to return to the bloody, gory natures of these foundational Western myths, and so when he's not toying around with their modern-day equivalents, he has occasional moments of some good gut-wrenching violence right in the primary story. I think he should have adhered more to this sense of returning fantasy into its darkest roots and letting it actually damage characters. Instead he brings the Woodsman back and gives us a faux-Disney happy ending, with only thesis-like acknowledgement that real life doesn't recognize a Happily Ever After. I think this book was at its best form when letting characters lose limbs, not when making snarky dwarves. This book came out at about the same time Guillermo del Toro's movie "Pan's Labyrinth" came out, and I guess the zeitgeist is such that these narratives, as transitional as they are, are going darker and violent over time. If that's the case, I say let's do it. Let's stop giving these characters their final kingdom as escape from the banality of a war-torn real world and let them be confronted with something truly terrifying, like a fantasy world that ends up destroying everything they love in the real world because they were too eager to escape their problems. I eagerly await THAT book.

--PolarisDiB


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Post by Darb »

Havent read the book, and probably wont, but thoroughly enjoyed your very cogent review. Nice to see a fellow fan of Campbell, and I like your insightful references to Gaiman.

BTW, what's up with the votes on some of your reviews on amazon ? I just located you over there. You're a fine reviewer, yet you seem to have drawn some trollish votes over there ... I see a lot of 0 of 1 helpfuls, which don't appear deserved. :|

Anyway, I gave you 3 helpfuls on 3 well written reviews about books I was familiar with (which is all the current system will allow from any one user).
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