The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
Consumed by grief following the death of his mother and his father’s remarriage, twelve-year-old David seeks refuge in fairytales. Soon myths begin to merge with reality, transporting him to another world of fiction. Believing his mother to be trapped somewhere in this new world, David sets off to rescue her, negotiating the dangerous and haunting landscape of the fables.
The novel suffers from an identity crisis. As a children’s story book it could function reasonably well. However, the graphic depictions of murder, alongside the rather contrived and none-so subtle tackling of ‘adult issues’ such as gay knights, mean that this most certainly shouldn’t be on the Puffin ‘Must-Read’ list for under-tens. The idea of adapting fairytales for an adult audience is certainly an interesting one, but Connolly lacks the vision and linguistic talent of Angela Carter to pull it off.
There are moments of true humour, such as the re-imagining of Snow White as a tyrannical obese spinster, when the adventurous spirit of the novel actually shines through, though these are seldom. All in all, a rather confused affair, although weighing in at over 500 pages, it does make a handy doorstop.
J
as if you know what your talking about…