Everything You Can Imagine is Real
On The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
08英语1班 钟雨沣 200830560280
This book’s name is called The Book of Lost Things. Lost things, generally speaking, are the things we lost, or, miss. But what is the book for, and why the writer made a book for lost things? We may lose things often, but in John Connolly’s chapter, it not only refers to certain objects, and we could see that sometimes we even lost ourselves.
The Book of Lost Things is a fiction novel written by John Connolly. The book tells about the story of a young boy named David who struggles with his mother's death and father's remarriage. When the World War II bomber plane crashes into his garden, he ends up in the fantasy world of his books and must find the king in the hopes who can return him to his home. The novel takes a different look at traditional fairy tales and follows every child's journey into adulthood.
John Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. His first novel, Every Dead Thing, was published in 1999, and introduced the character of Charlie Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter. The Book of Lost Things, published in September 2006, to be followed by the next Parker novel, The Unquiet, early in 2007.
The title refers to a book that King Jonathan keeps which holds many things from "our world". Also, the title can be taken metaphorically due to the relationship between David and his loss of childhood; his plunge into the adult world.
The story begins in London, England, during World War II. Just as World War II is rearing its ugly head in the skies above London, David's mother succumbs to the cancer that has suffered her body for months. David, a quiet, sensitive, secretly angry boy, during those time, he came out a series of rituals intended to keep his beloved mother alive, but finally failed. Then Almost before David has understood the reality of his mother's death, his father remarries. Soon David's father and despised stepmother have a new baby, Georgie, whose presence the 12-year-old David envies and resents so much.
Relocated to Rose's family's crumbling manor house outside London, David retreats to his bedroom, a book-lined room that once belonged to Rose's great-uncle, who vanished mysteriously when he was David's age.
When David is outside playing in the woods, he looks back towards his house and sees a mysterious figure in his room. His father helps him search the house, but all they find is a magpie which is released outside. The next day, Rose and David have a big fight and David longs to escape from his new surroundings. As he lays in bed that night, he hears his dead mother calling to him and he follows her voice outside to the sunken garden. While he explores the garden for his mother, he notices lights in the sky and realizes that a German bomber is falling straight towards the garden. With no where else to go, he climbs into a crack in the walls of the garden and finds himself transported to the Crooked Man's world. While exploring this new fantasy world, David has many adventures and lives out his own fairy tale.
There David befriends a Woodsman, who protects David as he learns more about this strange new world, and meets the Crooked Man himself, a wily trickster whose secrets reflect the darkest, ugliest reaches of the imagination.
The Woodsman accompanies David on a way to find the king of the realm, an elderly man in search of an heir. David is beset at every turn by the Loups, a race of half-wolf, half-men, whose leader wants to claim the throne himself.
The two begin walking towards the Woodsman's home, but end up in a mad dash to safety from wolves and loups. After a brief show-down and entering the safety of the Woodsman's home, it is explained that there are certain wolves who have begun to transform partially into humans and are called loups. The first loup was named Leroi and under his leadership the wolves and loups have grown into large packs. But there is not enough food in the forest to feed them all, which is why they were trying to attack David.
After unsuccessfully trying to return to his world back through the portal, it is decided that the best thing for David to do is to seek out the king and his book of lost things. David and the Woodsman travel to the edge of the forest. As the two of them approach a canyon guarded by trolls and harpies, a large group of wolves and loups appear out of the forest and attempt to capture David. After figuring out the trolls' riddle, David is able to cross one of the two bridges over the canyon. However, the Woodsman remains on the bridge to keep the wolves at bay. While several wolves die on the other bridge from harpies or falling through rigged slats, the Woodsman is overcome and carried away. David then cuts the bridge's ropes, which keeps the wolves from crossing over to his side.
While wandering down a road, David runs upon seven dwarfs who speak often of "rights and liberties" and "resisting oppression." The seven comrades (as the dwarfs refer to one another) take David to their home where he meets Snow White. This Snow White, however, is anything but pleasant and charming. After being poisoned by the dwarfs with a poison apple, the dwarfs were sentenced to care for the demanding and cruel Snow White.
David spends the night with Snow White and the seven dwarfs. He finds out that Snow White has almost eaten the dwarfs out of house and home. However, he also learns that the dwarfs are secretly mining diamonds, of which Snow White knows nothing. While parting, the dwarfs ask that David send any eligible suitors their way so that they can pay them off to marry Snow White.
Continuing down the road, David wanders off the path to eat some apples. While up in the apple tree, he witnesses a hunter kill a deer. But the deer was no ordinary deer, she had the head of a young girl. The hunter finds David in the tree and takes him captive. Once in the hunter's house, he learns that this huntress (as the hunter is a woman) captures young children and animals to fuse their bodies together. She says that with the body of an animal, humans make a better sport of hunting for her.
While waiting to meet his fate, David comes up with a plan. When the huntress attempts to put David's head on a fox's body, he tells the huntress that she would be a better hunter if she were a centaur. She considers this and eventually agrees. She shows David how to cut off her torso and the horse's head and how to fuse them together using a special salve. However, when David cuts off her torso, he disarms her by cutting off her hand and running away. When he leaves her home, he finds that many of her experiments have wandered back and they begin attacking her while he escapes.
After escaping the deceitful huntress, David begins to grow tired of walking through the forest for many hours until he comes across a soldier in white named Roland. Roland, kindheartedly allows David to ride with him on a quest to The Fortress of Thorns. However, they come across a battle field where many men were killed, and a tank from David's world sits there, almost as if it fell from the sky. Here, David officially meets the Crooked Man. The Crooked Man promises David the life he had before his mother's death, after spitting into the ground, which reflects what looks like his father, Rose and Georgie dancing happily. When the Woodsman is killed, David is left to discover the hidden secrets of this fantastic new land --- and his own hidden strengths --- by himself.
After understanding the story of David, then let’s come to see deeply the main Characters in The Book of Lost Things:
First, David - The protagonist boy of twelve. He loves books and stories that are held within them. After his mother's death and father's remarriage, David is magically transported into another world and seeks out King Jonathan and his book of lost things.
Then, David's Mother - She dies at the beginning of the novel and serves as inspiration for David to enter into the "other world."
The Crooked Man - The antagonist of the story. He seduces David into the other world and is both David's protector and enemy. He is loosely based on the character, Rumpelstiltskin.
Jonathan Tulvey - Rose's Uncle, the king of the other world.
The Woodsman - David becomes friend with him and the woodman promises him to get to the king. Based on the woodsman from Little Red Riding Hood.
Leroi & the Loups - Loups came into being when a young woman wearing a red cape, (Little Red Riding Hood), seduced a wolf. Their child was the first loup and now goes by the name Leroi. There are many wolves who have begun to transform into humans. Some have near human faces, walk on two legs, and wear human clothes. However, Leroi is the most advanced and the leader of all; his dream is to overthrow King Jonathan and take his place.
Above that, this fiction novel also reflects some other specific literary significance and reception. The Book of Lost Things was a break in tradition for author John Connolly. His other novels are of the thriller and crime genre. An article on Washington Post reviews this novel as a "distracting outing for the author". Many critics had similar views of the novel as having both unrealistic conventions and disturbing elements. Most reviews do, however, comment that John Connolly's contribution to the field of fantasy is his insight.
In this book, John Connolly used some References or Allusions in special and unusual way. Most evident in this novel is the use of retelling of traditional fairy tales. Anything from Snow White to Rumpelstiltskin is fair game for the author. However, none of the tales are the same as when we last heard them. Snow White is now gluttonous and no longer charming; her dwarves attempting to get rid of her. Little Red Riding Hood is no longer an innocent girl visiting her grandmother, but a seductive temptress who gives birth to the first loup (wolf-human). And figures such as Rumpelstiltskin and Kokopelli serve as the inspiration for the most despicable character - the Crooked Man.
Involved by characters from fairy tales and myths, inspired by the rich imaginary worlds that are so real to children, John Connolly's imaginary land is a fantastic, cleverly realized place where childhood fears and fantasies come to life. More than anything, Connolly's novel is a song to the power of story. "Stories...came alive in the telling... They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination, and transform the reader."
Connolly's work is based on familiar fairy tales, but it is by no means a novel only for children (although mature teens would probably taste it). Indeed, for the Irish novelist, who is best known for his books about serial killers, The Book of Lost Things, with its scary violence and perversions, is not as much of a departure as it might seem at first. Connolly's latest effort, though, pushes his storytelling in new directions, resulting in a novel that combines old-fashioned storytelling with modern sensibilities, that includes a moral without being moralistic, much like the best classic fairy tales themselves.
The lost things, at last, we found it, and then saw it. Every thing we imagine was real. We know what we are and what we need. Do not speak too much of it, think more about it, try to understand this unfair land.