The City of Dreaming Books
Walter Moers
There are books, the rare few, that so sharply and irrevocably shape our worldview that we can rightly say we were not the same person at page 1 that emerged, forever changed, on the other side of the back cover. The City of Dreaming Books is not that book; nor, dear readers, do I think it aspires to be. This is a book that is unapologetically and relentlessly fun, a true joy to read that only rarely becomes entangled in its own cleverness, a book that can take willing readers along for a hilarious and thrilling ride while offering just a bit of depth behind its otherwise trivial pursuits. The plot itself, along with the fantastic setting and the characters that populate it, is filled beyond the brim with fantasy clichés and tropes that transcend genre, and sometimes it can be difficult to see the distinction between Moers playing with these ideas and relying too heavily on them. The delightfully named Optimus Yarnspinner, a budding author and narrator of this tale, receives some lovely advice from his authorial godfather (on his deathbed, naturally) about the lovely cliffhanger created by a mentor imparting advice while on his deathbed, only to have that same situation arise, overtly commented upon by Yarnspinner himself, at a pivotal point in the novel. The whole thing is certainly well executed, and the joke enjoys a long, effective setup, but readers still leave with a clichéd deathbed hangover, however metafictional it has become in the author’s hands. Self-awareness, then, becomes the book’s greatest strength but also ultimately represents its most glaring weakness; it’s smart, but it may be too smart, too cheeky, to really be effective. The book’s many anagrams are, for example, occasionally executed with a stroke of sheer brilliance (see Perla la Gadeon’s hilarious pastiche of “The Bells” or Gramerta Climelth’s Gone with the Tornado), but lengthy lists of cleverly-named authors very perilously tread the line between amusing and indulgent.
This tendency toward the overwrought does not, strangely, prevent the book from being fun. Though some plot threads get inexplicably dropped at various points within the story, the novel just barely manages to hang together, and though the ride is predictable its fundamental silliness allows willing readers to sit back and, much like Yarnspinner, be carried along for the ride. There may be a suspension of serious literary criticism that must accompany the traditional suspension of disbelief, but readers willing to provide Moers the benefit of the doubt will be richly rewarded. Some of the recycled ideas in the book also shine with a ripe freshness, as his Fearsome Booklings become much more than a borrowed extension of Bradbury’s famous ending to Fahrenheit 451- along with memorizing the works of famous authors, they absorb the relevant personality traits, subtly asking deep questions about literature disguised as unimpeachably lovely little characters. This, too, is an overriding theme throughout the book, a tension between seriousness and play, between a loving satire of the literary world and serious critique of humanity’s relationship with art. The idea of long-buried tomes dreaming of their resurrection is coupled with the terrifying feats of the often-illiterate Bookhunters, bounty hunters for a city absolutely obsessed with literature.
These ideas, and more, prove that there are some deep philosophical underpinnings to the work, but the extent to which they are explored can easily be debated, as they are often buried under a mess of overly-polished humor or lost amongst a tangled web of side-plots. Then too there is the plot’s utter predictability, which can become as wearing as it is playful (a character endowed with divination showing up at precisely the right moment is either a hilarious subversion of the deus ex machina or an unoriginal re-hashing of it), and the swashbuckling plot becomes inexplicably boring even in the midst of rapid-fire action. It’s hard to gauge what this book may be going for either at any given moment or as a whole, but overall the experience is a good one, buoyed by a plethora of appropriate cartoons and a stunning use of immersive illustration. It is not a book for all readers or for all moods, but it does offer a rip-roaring getaway plan from the humdrum- clichés and all, it is anything but boring. The City of Dreaming Books may not permanently change your life, but it will likely improve the time you spend reading it.
Grade: A
Walter Moers
There are books, the rare few, that so sharply and irrevocably shape our worldview that we can rightly say we were not the same person at page 1 that emerged, forever changed, on the other side of the back cover. The City of Dreaming Books is not that book; nor, dear readers, do I think it aspires to be. This is a book that is unapologetically and relentlessly fun, a true joy to read that only rarely becomes entangled in its own cleverness, a book that can take willing readers along for a hilarious and thrilling ride while offering just a bit of depth behind its otherwise trivial pursuits. The plot itself, along with the fantastic setting and the characters that populate it, is filled beyond the brim with fantasy clichés and tropes that transcend genre, and sometimes it can be difficult to see the distinction between Moers playing with these ideas and relying too heavily on them. The delightfully named Optimus Yarnspinner, a budding author and narrator of this tale, receives some lovely advice from his authorial godfather (on his deathbed, naturally) about the lovely cliffhanger created by a mentor imparting advice while on his deathbed, only to have that same situation arise, overtly commented upon by Yarnspinner himself, at a pivotal point in the novel. The whole thing is certainly well executed, and the joke enjoys a long, effective setup, but readers still leave with a clichéd deathbed hangover, however metafictional it has become in the author’s hands. Self-awareness, then, becomes the book’s greatest strength but also ultimately represents its most glaring weakness; it’s smart, but it may be too smart, too cheeky, to really be effective. The book’s many anagrams are, for example, occasionally executed with a stroke of sheer brilliance (see Perla la Gadeon’s hilarious pastiche of “The Bells” or Gramerta Climelth’s Gone with the Tornado), but lengthy lists of cleverly-named authors very perilously tread the line between amusing and indulgent.
This tendency toward the overwrought does not, strangely, prevent the book from being fun. Though some plot threads get inexplicably dropped at various points within the story, the novel just barely manages to hang together, and though the ride is predictable its fundamental silliness allows willing readers to sit back and, much like Yarnspinner, be carried along for the ride. There may be a suspension of serious literary criticism that must accompany the traditional suspension of disbelief, but readers willing to provide Moers the benefit of the doubt will be richly rewarded. Some of the recycled ideas in the book also shine with a ripe freshness, as his Fearsome Booklings become much more than a borrowed extension of Bradbury’s famous ending to Fahrenheit 451- along with memorizing the works of famous authors, they absorb the relevant personality traits, subtly asking deep questions about literature disguised as unimpeachably lovely little characters. This, too, is an overriding theme throughout the book, a tension between seriousness and play, between a loving satire of the literary world and serious critique of humanity’s relationship with art. The idea of long-buried tomes dreaming of their resurrection is coupled with the terrifying feats of the often-illiterate Bookhunters, bounty hunters for a city absolutely obsessed with literature.
These ideas, and more, prove that there are some deep philosophical underpinnings to the work, but the extent to which they are explored can easily be debated, as they are often buried under a mess of overly-polished humor or lost amongst a tangled web of side-plots. Then too there is the plot’s utter predictability, which can become as wearing as it is playful (a character endowed with divination showing up at precisely the right moment is either a hilarious subversion of the deus ex machina or an unoriginal re-hashing of it), and the swashbuckling plot becomes inexplicably boring even in the midst of rapid-fire action. It’s hard to gauge what this book may be going for either at any given moment or as a whole, but overall the experience is a good one, buoyed by a plethora of appropriate cartoons and a stunning use of immersive illustration. It is not a book for all readers or for all moods, but it does offer a rip-roaring getaway plan from the humdrum- clichés and all, it is anything but boring. The City of Dreaming Books may not permanently change your life, but it will likely improve the time you spend reading it.
Grade: A
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