Jonathan Carroll, one of the greatest American fantasists had a bit of a dud in Bones of the Moon. For most authors, it would be reasonably accomplished, but for him, it wasn't quite up to snuff. The book uses the overlapping of a classic good vs. evil fantasy quest with the real world to illustrate how people can cope with loss. The fantasy world was too unrealized and bizarre to have any appeal and the characters were on the thin side.
William Browning Spencer's Zod Wallop is the book that Bones of the Moon could have been. In it, the author of the dark children's book Zod Wallop is wallowing in depression when a number of lunatic asylum escapees, who believe they are characters in the same book, seek to involve him in a heroic quest. Most people who be terrified, but the author is more bemused, as he wrote the book at the same asylum from whence they escaped and knows all the escapees. He is convinced something may be afoot when beasts from his novel start appearing.
The main character lost his daughter and he wrote Zop Wallop as a means of dealing with it. Unfortunately, he did not deal well with it, and he continues in a downward spiral. The quest of the book is really for him to accept life once more and move forward.
The characters are fairly stock, with a few particularly evil ones and few particularly good ones. They are meant to appear as they would in a children's fantasy novel and their reality in the pages is not always clear. There is quite a bit of humor in the book, as well as all kinds of bizarre set pieces. Spencer is nothing if not inventive.
Spencer hasn't written any novels since the 90s, but continues to write short stories. After Zod Wallop, I plan to read more starting with Resume with Monsters.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Can you live this fantasy life?
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2 comments:
ZOD WALLOP is a thin and not very engaging copy of Carroll's first novel THE LAND OF LAUGHS. BONES OF THE MOON, nominated for every fantasy award there is, has already been called a classic by people like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Stanislaw Lem.
Ethan K.
Land of Laughs is an excellent book and one I may even prefer over Zod Wallop, although the books' principal similarity is a literary reality intersecting with our own. Other than that they are quite different. For example, in Zod Wallop, it is not even clear how much is imagined or is real. In the Land of Laughs it is quite clear that everything described is actually happening.
I don't care who calls Bones of the Moon a classic ( and especially not Stephen King who will gladly praise any book put in front of him.) The characters were two dimensional at best and the fantastical elements were absurd without being humorous or relevants. It's Carroll so it's worth reading, but only just.
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