well, anyway. today arrived three books, including Long Walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela) and No Future Without Forgiveness (Desmond Tutu). I haven't picked either up yet. and really, it's only their bad luck to have shipped with The 13-1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear. I just had to read that one first!
"Equal parts J.K. Rowlings, Douglas Adams, and Shel Silverstein"... how could I possibly resist that? is there a more powerful combination in the universe?
It really is quite easy to picture a square yard of multidimensional space--- provided you have seven brains.
Simply picture a train travelling through a black hole with a candle on its roof while you yourself, with a candle on your head, are standing on Mars and winding a clock precisely one yard in diameter, and while an owl, which also has a candle on its head and is travelling in the opposite direction to the train at the speed of light, is flying through a tunnel in the process of being swallowed by another black hole with a candle on its head [if you can imagine a black hole with a candle on its head, though for that you will require at least four brains]. Join up the four points at which the candles are burning, using a coloured pencil, and you'll have one square yard of multidimensional space. You will also, coincidentally, be able to tell the time on Mars by the clock, even in the dark, because---of course---you've got a candle on your head.
page 256
if I ever wrote my autobiography, it might sound a lot like The 13-1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear. not that it would start out with my first memory being in a nutshell floating in an ocean. (though that nutshell thing would explain a lot in my case.) but it would probably be just as nonsensical (one could only hope as entertaining).
Moers' writing style is indeed much like Douglas Adams', and employs abundant creative phrasing (woodpecker Morse) and analogy (I had eyesight as keen as an eagle looking through an electron microscope), and he does know how to go on about something for comedic effect (I thought poor Bluebear was trying to dig a hole in my yard instead of the Demerara Desert on page 309). one of my favorite pages is # 238, on which is only written the word
Boom!
I love this book.
however.
then I got to page 445. Atlantis. Bluebear's 12th life. well the first eleven were great. Atlantis lacked quite a lot in my opinion. perhaps it was when he started listing all the weird creatures that lived there. a short list is okay. a catalogue is too much. for me. and then when the narrative started up again, it was missing something. part of it was the same great stuff, but there was too much extrapolation and the whole congladiator thing was extremely overdone. yes, I get it, he was kind of parodying the book in the book. but it just wasn't done well, or maybe it only worked in German? or maybe I'm a killjoy. whatever. didn't work for me.
the rest of the book (after Atlantis, which was only one chapter, one life, but lasted almost 200 pages) managed to get back on track, but the rhythm was off and it wasn't the same as the beginning of the book up til Atlantis.
sigh.
I recommend skipping that middle part.
well, the first 445 pages are a flat-out 5. then the next 200ish pages are a 1. then the last 80 pages are a 3.
so overall that would be a 3. if you skipped Atlantis, then you get a rating of 4 (and it might be higher if your concentration has not lagged due to Atlantis, hard to tell).
all that said, it is an amazing book. I still do recommend it. but I'm a bit sillied out now and really ready for Nelson Mandela...
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