Review of Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve

Reeve, Philip. Here Lies Arthur. Scholastic, 2008.

I don’t know what took me so long to get to this book, seeing as how I’m a huge fan of both Reeve’s Immortal Engines quartet and practically anything even remotely Arthurian (including books that simply take place in the cold and mucky England of yore – very long-ago yore).

Here Lies Arthur was well worth the wait. After Myrddin the bard rescues young Gwyna from the aftermath of one of war-band leader Arthur’s slash-and-burn raids, she is transformed from a slave who just tried to get through each day to a person who suddenly has the opportunity and perspective to think about the world around her and even to change the course of events.

It starts with a cliché of many historical novels with strong female characters – Gwyna must be disguised as a boy, not only to ensure her safety in a rough, male-dominated world, but also to conceal the fact that she took part in a Myrddin-designed ruse to convince Arthur’s soldiers and enemies that the Lady of the Lake (little Gwyna, actually) gifted him with an ancient and powerful sword.

Although Gwyna is forced by her own growing body and by circumstance to change from Gwyn to Gwyna and back again several times, this is not the focus of the tale. Rather, it is Gwyna’s observations of Arthur’s small fiefdom, of the ways of its men and women, and most of all of the way people see mainly what they expect to see that form the backdrop of this tale. There are some small and brutal battles, but mainly Gwyna is able (as a girl) to avoid being in the thick of these. However, what she can’t avoid is the knowledge that the kingly, heroic Arthur created by Myrddin’s songs and tales is very different from the actual power-hungry, thoughtless Arthur who lives to hunt and raid.

Myrddin wants to be a king-maker, not through any desire for power of his own but because his own childhood, spent as a Saxon slave after his village was destroyed, convinced him of the urgent necessity for safety and order in Britain. Myrddin is smart and clear-eyed – he knows that Arthur is just as brutish and short-sighted as any other petty leader of an insignificant warband. However, his status as the son of Uther is one advantage Arthur has, and the other is having Myrddin as his advisor. Myrddin has a keen understanding of human nature and politics, and he hopes that the legends he spreads throughout Britain will take on a life of their own and sweep the real, less-than-perfect Arthur along with them until all of Britain is united and strong under his rule.

That nothing quite works out as Myrddin plans, and that he has to set in motion several nefarious schemes in order to get closer to his grand goal, is one of the tragedies of the book. Not only do people lose their lives and loves, but his plan fails – and Gwyna is disillusioned in her old mentor, who she discovers too late has always loved her like a father.

The tension between the relatively new Christian religion and the old gods is underscored in many key ways throughout the book, with Myrddin providing a third (and very modern-feeling) perspective with his disbelieving and cynical views. To believe in nothing is freedom, he says, as he isn’t shackled by the fear and superstition that hamper other people and thus he can manipulate them more easily.

Gwyna’s story was so engrossing and so vividly told that I was absolutely bereft when she and her companion buy passage on a ship called Hope, “outbound for somewhere better.” I want to know what she does next and what her life is like. Whether she becomes a wandering bard herself or finds a safe croft in which to settle down and raise a family, I’m sure Gwyna will continue to observe the world around her closely and to come to her own conclusions.

Highly recommended for grades 5 and up.

Escaping Reality

I just finished Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan (Viking, 2007), a slim grown-up novel about the very last day at a Red Lobster that is being closed for good. It's an aging restaurant, standing across a parking lot from an aging mall, but Manny, the diligent manager, has put his heart and soul into the place for more than 10 years. After today, he'll be one of several assistant managers at an Olive Garden, but for this last lunch and dinner shift, he's trying to keep his disintegrating staff, not to mention his less-than-satisfactory personal life, together while he gives the best service possible to the few customers who wander through the front doors one last time.

Anyone who has worked in food service, been a supervisor, or simply tried to deal with too many frustrating tasks at once will read this novel with an almost suffocating sense of recognition. There's a big world out there, but for Manny, stuck in his restaurant in the middle of a snowstorm, he can only do the best he can. It's pointless - the restaurant is history, there is no further way to shine here - but he continues to struggle and strive, a very ordinary but noble Sisyphus.

After an uber-realistic novel like this, I need a book that takes the familiar and gives it a twist - not straight fantasy or science fiction, necessarily, but perhaps something like Tunnels by Gordon Roderick and Brian Williams (Scholastic, 2008). 14-year-old Will Burrows, like his father, has a mania for conducting surreptitous archaeological digs underneath the city of London. After his father disappears, Will and his new friend Chester discover a long-lost underground colony, run by a group of odd and menacing creatures called the Styx. The action moved quickly and the details (the clothing, food, and architecture of the folks down below, for intance) were fascinating enough to keep me reading. Two flaws, however, kept this novel from being a completely satisfying experience. First, there were many logical flaws - for instance, how has no one found out about this place, considering all the modern-day development in London? The puny explanation - that those who accidentally found out are "disappeared" down below - simply doesn't work. Many similar questions kept floating into my brain as I read, but I was able to suspend my disbelief most of the time, if only so I wouldn't get fed up and simply stop reading. The more damaging flaw was the flatness of many of the characters. We are told that Will loves his extremely dysfunctional family, but we are given no evidence of this. We are told that Will feels great loyalty toward his father and his friend Chester, and indeed this is a wonderful thing - but when he escapes after suffering terrible dangers, only to immediately go back underground to rescue his father and friend, it feels a bit unreal. We are told about the emotions and attachments of the characters, not shown them, and it makes it hard for the reader to care. Still, readers in grades 6 to 8 will savor the unusual, action-packed plot.

China Mieville is a fantastic writer in the so-called Steampunk genre, having produced such grown-up masterpieces as Perdido Street Station and The Scar. His first young adult novel, Un Lun Dun (Random House, 2008), portrays a sort of alternate London, a dreamlike, surreal world that occasionally interacts with and is affected by "our" London, and vice-versa. A young teen of our world, Zanna, is pulled over to UnLondon because she has been picked out by a book of prophesy as being the Schwazzy, or Chosen One, who will save UnLondon from The Smog (yes, this hideous specter comes from our London, but is controled by evil UnLonders). Zanna and her sassy friend Deeba orient themselves with difficulty to the very different UnLondon, where junk from London becomes sentient (an empty milk carton becomes Deeba's pet) and strange denizens have come up with a whole different sort of economy. Mieville's imagination runs full force, although I felt he reined back a bit on his prose style, keeping his sentences and paragraphs less complex and baroque than in his adult books. Still, this is a gorgeously intricate novel that should appeal to adults as well as kids in grades 6 and above, and especially to fans of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.

Lamplighter by D.M. Cornish (Penguin, 2008) is a book I can't wait to read (it's on hold for me in the circulation department as I write - oh joy!). It's the 2nd in the Monster Blood Tattoo series, the first of which was Foundling (Penguin, 2007), which I actually read twice within a few months - a very rare occurrence for me, as there are just TOO many books to read even once, let alone twice. This is the series for readers looking for a complex, ambitious, fully-realized, well-developed world in which to immerse themselves. Rossamund Bookchild is a boy with a girl's name who was abandoned as a baby at a home for foundlings. In his world, the Half-Continent, children (and especially foundlings) dream of becoming brave sailors in the Navy or even heroic monster-killers - but Rossamund is hired to become a Lamplighter for the Empire. On his journey to his new headquarters, however, he has a series of misadventures that lead him to the company of the dashing and mysterious Europe, a monster-slayer of great repute. The humans in Rossamund's world are engaged in a general eradication of monsters, many of whom are indeed quite nasty; however, it doesn't take long for Rossamund to wonder if perhaps not ALL monsters are terrible. This, along with his job as Lamplighter, will certainly be addressed further in the second volume. The detailed drawings and insanely complete addendum (maps, calendars, dictionaries - I'm telling you, this author is totally obsessed) add huge appeal to fantasy-addled readers like me. For readers in grades 6 and up who thrive on challenging fare.

And don't forget the "Hungry Cities Chronicles" by Philip Reeve, which began with Mortal Engines (HarperCollins, 2004). Cities trundling about on giant treads, mashing all beneath them and gobbling up smaller cities ("municipal Darwinism"), while airships rocket above - and young Tom and Hester try to find their place in a mad world. Gripping from the beginning of the series to the end. For grades 6 and up - and for adult fans of China Mieville as well.

I've just finished Waiting for Normal (see my review below) and am starting the second Rex Zero book - good stuff, but I can't wait to escape to other worlds and realities. See you there...