Coming of age story that does a delicate balancing act between YA tone and mature content, but offers some interesting insights into growing up (at any age ...)
I should say that I defer to no one in my admiration of Russell Hoban. "Riddley Walker" would be first in the bag for my Desert Island books. Novels (adult and children's) like "Fremder," "The Mouse and His Child," and "The Marzipan Pig" are little gems. And then there are the Frances the Badger series of children's books .... each one of which I have read, in the line of parental duty, about a million times, and would cheerfully read a million more ...
Hoban's work invariably involves a private mythology that he spins into a Universal Truth (whether we are talking abut a family of badgers with a child who is inclined to poeticizing and prim literal-mindedness, or whether we are talking about how Punch and Judy might represent the salvation of a post-apocalyptic world ...). Hoban's mythology, whatever it is, can be a little, er, obscure but he usually offers enough of a lifeline for the reader to get onboard and hang on. And he makes the ride worth it.
Here, the myth is constructed around a mysterious jigsaw puzzle (or "juzzle") showing a bridge (or "brudge") in the foreground of a shadowy landscape. The juzzle is bought by unhappy schoolboy Nick Hartley (a boy on the cusp of that awkward age when he is technically a teenager, at the age of 13, but hasn't quite achieved any of the "advantages," physical or social, that being a teen brings). It is sold by busker Moe Nagic, a man with a sad past, who gives him a few pointers on how to enter the scene in the picture, and then kills himself ....
Yeah, that went dark, very fast. Something to remember is that this was written in the heady days before young people were encouraged to consider themself children, who must be shielded from any unpleasantness, up to the age of about 21. There's plenty of unpleasantness, treated quite matter-of-factly, in this short novella. Hoban obviously thought that his readers were mature enough to handle it, and remembering my own pre-teen years, I'm inclined to agree with him.
Nick is drawn into the world of the "juzzle," getting trapped there as he tries to work though his real-life crushes, clash with his class bully, figure out his relationship with parents and brother, and come to terms with his own Mind. Which is a character in its own right, and -- nice joke -- has a mind of its own ...
Much to like, and the way it all works out has a pleasing quality of a fairy-tale for one on the cusp of puberty, but it didn't entirely feel like it all came together in a way that made me say, yes, that's how it was. That makes sense of it all ...
I was more than a bit disappointed that, in the end, Nick's problems with Harry Buncher the bully are solved in quite a simplistic way. I hoped for something better, more humane from Russell Hoban.
I also felt that, amusing as the exchanges that Nick had with his Mind were to begin with, they got a bit old, and began to feel like padding.
I loved his parents. His Mum, whose constant playing of Clair de Lune, "hesitantly but with a light touch," may signal sad memories of lost loves (or may not), and his Dad, whose dad-jokes and "hale fellow, well met" affect with his sons are his way of concealing his own life disappointments. It's dryly amusing to see Nick's misconceptions about his parents, the alternative backstories that the juzzle creates for them, and how Nick comes to realise that, there doesn't necessarily have to be any drama or mystery -- his parents are people, with hopes and disappointments, too.
"When I asked Mum about her pre-Dad days it developed that she'd never had a bassoon-playing boyfriend with whom she'd read Proust ..."
That, of course, is her story -- what Nick, and we the readers, learn from the juzzle is that each life contains multitudes ....
I should say that I defer to no one in my admiration of Russell Hoban. "Riddley Walker" would be first in the bag for my Desert Island books. Novels (adult and children's) like "Fremder," "The Mouse and His Child," and "The Marzipan Pig" are little gems. And then there are the Frances the Badger series of children's books .... each one of which I have read, in the line of parental duty, about a million times, and would cheerfully read a million more ...
Hoban's work invariably involves a private mythology that he spins into a Universal Truth (whether we are talking abut a family of badgers with a child who is inclined to poeticizing and prim literal-mindedness, or whether we are talking about how Punch and Judy might represent the salvation of a post-apocalyptic world ...). Hoban's mythology, whatever it is, can be a little, er, obscure but he usually offers enough of a lifeline for the reader to get onboard and hang on. And he makes the ride worth it.
Here, the myth is constructed around a mysterious jigsaw puzzle (or "juzzle") showing a bridge (or "brudge") in the foreground of a shadowy landscape. The juzzle is bought by unhappy schoolboy Nick Hartley (a boy on the cusp of that awkward age when he is technically a teenager, at the age of 13, but hasn't quite achieved any of the "advantages," physical or social, that being a teen brings). It is sold by busker Moe Nagic, a man with a sad past, who gives him a few pointers on how to enter the scene in the picture, and then kills himself ....
Yeah, that went dark, very fast. Something to remember is that this was written in the heady days before young people were encouraged to consider themself children, who must be shielded from any unpleasantness, up to the age of about 21. There's plenty of unpleasantness, treated quite matter-of-factly, in this short novella. Hoban obviously thought that his readers were mature enough to handle it, and remembering my own pre-teen years, I'm inclined to agree with him.
Nick is drawn into the world of the "juzzle," getting trapped there as he tries to work though his real-life crushes, clash with his class bully, figure out his relationship with parents and brother, and come to terms with his own Mind. Which is a character in its own right, and -- nice joke -- has a mind of its own ...
Much to like, and the way it all works out has a pleasing quality of a fairy-tale for one on the cusp of puberty, but it didn't entirely feel like it all came together in a way that made me say, yes, that's how it was. That makes sense of it all ...
I was more than a bit disappointed that, in the end, Nick's problems with Harry Buncher the bully are solved in quite a simplistic way. I hoped for something better, more humane from Russell Hoban.
I also felt that, amusing as the exchanges that Nick had with his Mind were to begin with, they got a bit old, and began to feel like padding.
I loved his parents. His Mum, whose constant playing of Clair de Lune, "hesitantly but with a light touch," may signal sad memories of lost loves (or may not), and his Dad, whose dad-jokes and "hale fellow, well met" affect with his sons are his way of concealing his own life disappointments. It's dryly amusing to see Nick's misconceptions about his parents, the alternative backstories that the juzzle creates for them, and how Nick comes to realise that, there doesn't necessarily have to be any drama or mystery -- his parents are people, with hopes and disappointments, too.
"When I asked Mum about her pre-Dad days it developed that she'd never had a bassoon-playing boyfriend with whom she'd read Proust ..."
That, of course, is her story -- what Nick, and we the readers, learn from the juzzle is that each life contains multitudes ....
This was a unique plot and I was pleased with how easily it all "tied up" together at the end!
