Fairytales & Nightmares for grownups! (The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
Date:	15/07/09 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: loved the fable & fairytale aspect, character development superb

Disadvantages: takes a while to get into, beginning section is too drawn out

Basic story...

Set in 1939 during the war, The Book of Lost things is a tale about a boy called David who has lost his mother through a terminal illness. He now lives with his father and his new stepmother Rose, as well as his new half brother Georgie. David finds it hard to adjust to his new life in Rose's big old house, he resists all attempts by Rose to befriend him and he resents the intrusion of his new half brother and Rose on his fathers time.
The only good thing that David can see about his situation is the old house holds interesting secrets for him. David's new room is filled with old books that appear to whisper to him, and having a great passion for books, David is fascinated by the tales on the shelves but also terrified as he begins to see The Crooked Man stepping out of the stories and into his own life.

One night, David hears his mothers voice calling to him to help, and as he runs across the lawn at the sound of his mother voice, a German bomber is also heading into his path. During this apparent collision, David is catapulted into another world, a world in which the tales of which he has read about seem to have come alive! The Crooked Man has come and taken him to the other world...!

My Review...

This is probably one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is not particularly a genre that I am interesting in reading but for some reason this book appealed to me. It encompasses a lot of genres from fairytale, fable to fantasy and just downright scary horror!

It does take a while to get in to, and at one point I was on the verge of giving it up. I found that the scene setting of Davids home life not interesting and could have been a bit more concise, but equally I found the jump between the "real world" and the fairytale world a hard one to adjust to and it took me several chapters to pick up the pace again of where David had landed in this new world.
However, once I had got in to it, I was hooked and I felt that I had been transported back to some of the books I had read as a child which had some weird and wonderful characters that both scared and fascinated me. The books that sprang to mind when reading this were The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Magic Faraway Tree (my all time favourite childhood books) and to some extent, The Wizard of Oz (well, he is trying to find his way home afterall!). Most of all, I was reminded of the fairytales and stories I was told by my grandparents which conjured up all sorts of good and bad characters in my mind.
Along the way, David meets some interesting characters which will both help and hinder him on his journey to find the King and "The Book of Lost Things" which he has been told will return him to his homeland.

David...

Obviously, David is the main character In the story. I felt that this character was particularly well drawn and developed during the latter part of the book but I found myself struggling with his character during the initial chapters. At the beginning of the book, David comes across as quite a young boy, desperately sad at the loss of his mother but also selfish and silly (as young boys can be!) as a result, I was frustrated at the way he treated his stepmother. However, the nature of the story means that David is on a journey of self discovery, and I thought that the author cleverly matured David as he overcame his fears, stood on his own two feet and thought for himself when he was left on his own in the strange land. It might have been mentioned in the book, but I only realised when reading about it afterwards that David is supposed to be a 12 year old boy. What is interesting to me is that in the early stages, he seems much younger in his childish ways, but by half way through the book, I felt like the main character was much older than he was, and although there were some points where I felt this was almost unbelievable for a young boy to be acting and reacting in these quite mature ways, generally speaking I felt that David just adapted to his situation and the character development was well written to fit perfectly with this as a coming of age tale.

The Crooked Man...

As I have mentioned, there are many weird and wonderful creatures in this fairytale (or rather, nightmarish) land. There are wolves that have human qualities, trolls, harpies, monsters, knights, woodsmen and soldiers. However, aside from David, The Crooked Man has a huge central role in this story.
The Crooked Man appears in David's world and he instantly knows, as a child does, that this man is not a good person. The actual physical description of The Crooked Man was perfectly in keeping with the childhood baddie tradition in my opinion! He eerily follows David around when he arrives in the strange land and although the reader is always clear that his intentions are not good, the suspense is built enough to know that when we are told, it will be suitably awful!

At the back of the book, there is a question and answer session from the author where he explains his ideas and one of the big ideas and story development comes from his imaginings of The Crooked Man.
Not surprisingly, a lot of his ideas sprang from his own fears from childhood such as losing parents and other loved ones. He also touches on how real characters can seem to children as part of their very vivid imagination. David is in a land where fairytales, stories and fables are entwined and elements of stories he has heard are distorted to make often uglier versions in this new world.
The Crooked Man is the big "baddie" in this story and the author tells how his character was developed partly through the story of Rumplestiltskin; the dwarf who spins straw into gold but also demands the first born child of the poor millers daughter in return. The Crooked Man works on a similar principle in this story, and his wickedness towards children helps to create a terrifying element to David's journey. The Crooked Man also reminded me of the title character in "Mr Toppit"; a strange, fairytale character who seems menacing, magical and unreal.

The Story & Development...

Despite the story maintaining a childlike quality in it's make believe land with all its imaginative creatures, I was always reminded that this was a tale for grownups; nothing was spared from young David's eyes; he smelt the stench of rotten corpses, and saw the heads of those long dead. The horror side to this book is quite prominent in parts and often the stories were fairly gruesome, and it was in these sections that I felt that the story was more than an adult fairytale. However, even the frightening scenes were extremely well written fascinating in their morbid way and entertaining for both adults and perhaps young boys alike if they like that sort of thing!

I found that once I had got through the initial chapters of setting up David's predicament in the strange land, the book was extremely absorbing and well paced, I was never bored as David was always on a new adventure, solving a new riddle, helping out others or meeting new and strange creatures. It is impossible to read this book without feeling that it is overflowing with imagination, excitement and energy if nothing else!

David begins a quest to find the King and in doing so overcomes some emotional barriers as well as physical ones. The author states that this book is about childhood and becoming aware of reality and therefore it is not a book for children. I would say this is true, it certainly is a book in which David turns from boy to man and the journey he undertakes to realise that real life does hold pain and misery but it also has love and enjoyment.
Having said that, I think it fits perfectly with childrens fiction too. Like most children, they have a love-hate relationship with stories full of wicked creatures, they both love hearing about them but are also scared of them and I think children of a certain age would equally think the same of the story in this book. The Brothers Grimm are clearly a massive influence in this tale and that is an element that I particularly enjoyed. The book is dotted with fairytales/folk tales/fables that almost turn the original story on its head and I particularly liked reading these adaptations. To explain the existence of the strange human-wolf creatures that roam the forest, the Woodsman tells David a story that sounds similar to that of Little Red Riding Hood. I was particularly fascinated by these tales (also included, for instance, is a twisted version of Hansel and Gretel) as they turned my knowledge of the story on its head and gave it a new twist. For me, these sections probably gave me the greatest pleasure, they were imaginative, well written and just extremely enjoyable to read. Im sure some people would agree that modern adaptations, or looking at a story such as this in a different light is easily an enjoyable read.

Overall...

I cannot fault this book in terms of originality. I've never read anything like it and I'm amazed to read that John Connolly, the Dublin-born author is more comfortable and better known around the crime fiction genre (albeit supernatural crime fiction!) I felt that he captured the spirit of a lonely imaginative boy perfectly; the whole book was vivid and completely memorable. I can only sum my thoughts up by nicking a quote from the many on the inside of the cover from Choice, one in which I agree wholeheartedly:

"A new interpretation of old fairy tales, it is imaginative and beautifully written."

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