Sunday, March 11, 2007

Oh well

Jonathan Carroll's Land of Laughs and White Apples were great novels. I wish Bones of the Moon was as good as those, but I can't say it was. It was similar to the other two in that it featured a person in the modern world who discovers that our world overlaps with a magic world. This time it just didn't work. The dreamworld theme was just too strange. Dreams of course do not make sense, and Carroll emphasizes this by throwing in terms and words he never explains. Had he added more description it might have been more intersting. I think he was trying to capture the strange insanity of dreams that we accept while dreaming, but make no sense later. Not quite interesting enough. And this critical. In the books I have read so far, the character has been important, but it is the character's interaction with the magic that makes the book.

This too would have been fine if the central conflict were more interesting, but it isn't. For some, the central conflict may be enraging. It revolves around a woman dealing with her abortion. I can see alarm bells going off in some people's heads already. Even if you aren't so ideologically inclined, I doubt you will be engrossed by her journey. It's not terrible it was just not as interesting as those in the other books.

This would not be the place to start with Carroll. Try Land of Laughs or White Apples. Here is someone who completely disagrees.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever seen Jonathan Carroll's daily blog on his website www.jonathancarroll.com? It is routinely, almost daily, wonderful. In case you don't know it, BONES OF THE MOON is the first book of a series of six that's unofficially known as "The Answered Prayers Sextet." Characters and situations from all the books keep moving back and forth between them.

Dagmar Lipovics

Tripp said...

Well I am certainly going to continue reading him. Since I liked one written before and one written after, I am calling this one an aberration.

Brack said...

Dagmar's "anonymous" comment is remarkably similar in tone and content to those of Erin and Robert, which appeared when last you posted about JC.

Hmmm. There is a whiff of canned meat about all of this.