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John
Connolly's The Book of Lost Things is a fairytale made
up of fairytales; it is a mix of old and new legends that
forms a mysterious and sometimes horrific, though predictable,
Elsewhere.
It is
London, England, 1939. The war is on and the Nazis are marching
through Europe. A young boy named David and his mother are
voracious readers, especially of fairytales. After David's
mother dies of an unnamed illness, David's father remarries
and relocates the small family to David's stepmother's house,
where years before, two young children named Jonathan Tulvey
and Anna disappeared without a trace. While living at the
house, David begins hearing things; books—especially
his books—are whispering to him.
Shortly
after the books begin speaking to David, David's stepmother
gives birth to a child. David begins seeing a strange figure—the
Crooked Man—in waking dreams and around their new home.
The discord between David and his new family grows, and David
spends more and more time away from the house and in the sunken
garden near their home. Eventually, the whispering of the
books, the visions, and his dead mother's voice lure him into
the sunken garden, pulling David into another world—Elsewhere.
At first, David travels through the land hoping to save his
mother and escape the Crooked Man, who has begun pursuing
David's half-brother. During the journey, David discovers
the fate of the missing Jonathan and Anna and uncovers the
true identity of Elsewhere's puppet-king, all the while becoming
the storybook hero that Elsewhere has so desperately needed.
The
Book of Lost Things is strongest where Connolly's storytelling
is strongest: at the beginning. Connolly starts with the intriguing
and painful story of a grieving boy and the conflict with
his new family. However, once David passes through the garden
and into Elsewhere, Connolly begins to recycle old tales,
weaving Grimm's fairytales with David's own fears.
While
this method had great potential, Connolly's storytelling becomes
trite and formulaic, like that of a fairytale. All characters—including
David—are merely types of characters cribbed from legends,
fairytales, and oral tradition. Connolly attempts to put his
own twist on these recycled character types—an obese
and bossy Snow White with communist Dwarves, a homosexual
knight—but his attempts fall flat in that he characterizes
them with only basic details. Connolly only hints at the new
characteristics of the Dwarves, giving them names like "Comrade
Number One" and including passing snippets of a chant that
includes lyrics surrounding "collectivization of labor" and
"oppression by the capitalist running dogs." When dealing
with Roland, the homosexual knight, Connolly resorts to common
misconceptions surrounding homosexual men, enforcing the stereotype
that homosexuals prey on young children, instead of fleshing
out Roland's character and allowing him to negotiate his identity
within his role of knight.
Connolly's
prose and storytelling is straightforward and unsophisticated,
unlike that of the model he attempts to follow. At times Connolly
takes a Homeric approach, attempting to use Roland and the
Woodsman to tell stories within stories, as Odysseus does
in The Odyssey. These stories have appropriate themes
and meaning to the context in which they are told, but they
are poorly presented; Connolly fails to weave them into the
text of his novel appropriately.
While
Connolly's presentation lacks, his idea is ripe for imagination
to occur. The land that he has created, a land where one's
personal fears are manifested into being, is undoubtedly fascinating
and engrossing. The fears of people in the real world, outside
of Elsewhere, become living breathing beings inside of Elsewhere.
David is pursued by his own fears and fears of others; David's
fear is a great worm with talons, laying waste to everything
in its path. Connelly spares much description, leaving most
of the creation of setting to the reader. Like David, readers
are interacting with the magical landscape, allowing their
own fears and fantasies to shape the look of the story.
The magic
of the kingdom inside the sunken garden is alluring, and despite
its shortcomings, it is hard not to enjoy this novel. The
recycled tales Connelly uses are as engrossing and enchanting
as they were the first time they were told. Young readers
with a penchant for fantasy will undoubtedly identify with
David and delight in the magic and fear of Elsewhere and in
the mystery of the sunken garden.
(July,
2007)
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