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Title: Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0-441-86584-4 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: December, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $2.75 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Family Friendship Love Jealousy Deceit Crime and Punishment
Comment: Short but intense novel on hardships of growing up, even later in life as an adult. Carroll's first book is one powerful account of an anti-hero, who is bullied and ignored in his childhood as a weak, unimportant character, left to envy others and hate himself. As suspected, his past catches up eventually, even in Vienna, thousands of miles away from home. The story drives its power from the honesty of its narrator, ringing so true that one thinks it is possibly relying on some real-life experience: a.k.a. first novel being biographical. Very interesting, original in its ideas on misperception and mistreatment of others and of oneself. I compare this one favorably against the critically appraised, award winning Carroll book "Land of Laughs".
Rating: 4
Summary: Insightful and disquieting
Comment: This is a wonderfully original and understated novel: a coming-of-age story with a mystery at its heart, embellished with fantasy elements that become stronger and more integral as the book heads to its conclusion. Unlike much fantasy writing these days, there's no unnecessary padding here; rather, you're left wanting more.
The setting (predominantly Vienna) is evoked with a nicely economic style, while the (few) characters come to life naturally through their words and actions. The creeping unease builds gradually, and is never overdone - and the ending packs a considerable punch. I enjoyed it immensely, although if you like your fiction strictly explicable and grounded in reality you may find some of the developments a touch difficult to swallow.
This recently came back into print in the UK; if you can get hold of a copy, do: you can read it in an evening and you won't be disappointed.
Rating: 2
Summary: A weak effort from Carroll
Comment: Having begun reading Carroll at the beginning, I found "Land of Laughs" to be very entertaining, with a natural, gradual, though late-beginning integration of the supernatural element into the story. Surprises encountered along the way only deepened that integration, as if periodically, the reader is made to see, "Ok, it's even more than that." The sense of something being wrong is pulled along and twisted this way and that until at the end, with the necessary understanding possessed by the hero (and the reader) at last, the final turns of the story result in what can appropriately be termed a denoument, with an accompanying, bonus twist of sorts added on.
Newly impressed by this author whom I'd heard and read much about, and liking authors often grouped with him (and since his books take about two days to read), I picked up a few more novels. What I found, for the most part, and "Voice of Our Shadow" is the prime example, is what amounts to a bunch of shaggy-dog stories. Notwithstanding the overwhelming similarity of the first-person narrative voices in Carroll's books, whether male or female, the main problem seems to be the sufficiency, for Carroll, in simply revealing a magical element to said narrative. One gets an intimate life story with a supernatural element creeping in roughly halfway through the story, and then there is a big revelation near the end, and that's all. The very existence of the magical element is the sum total of the reason for the existence of the story. In "Bones of the Moon," it's "Oh, her dream-world impinges on reality;" and here, it's "Oh, right, if there's one dead person who's 'returned' there can be another." That is all. One couldn't meaningfully say that we are forced to reevaluate what has gone before, any more than we search for deeper meaning once someone has concluded telling us a joke. The twist is just that and nothing more; any reevaluation of what has gone before is one and the same with recognition of the surprise. Most importantly, nothing takes place afterward, so there is no subsequent development of plot or hero, and we are left with only the dull idea that things will be different now. All of this only underscores the shaggy-dog structure of his middle novels. Beyond even this is the fact that in "Voice of Our Shadow," the final shock does nothing to change the hero's predicament, it is merely a redundant twist on his story.
Some of Carroll's later works, like "The Marriage of Sticks," which is even more similar than usual to "Sleeping in Flame," at least are wrapped more vividly in a package of self-revelation, with a more gradual, suspenseful working-out of the mysteries surrounding the hero's (self-) discoveries. But the stories, and problems with them, remain. The heroes are flawed, emotionally needy people, and are magically taught a lesson about who they are. It is unfortunate that someone who showed as much promise as Carroll, and who, it must be fair, still shows flashes of his ability, has essentially become a factory for "product," churning out increasingly familiar and redundant work. So do not read this one, and instead begin with "The Land of Laughs" and proceed cautiously from there.
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Title: Kissing The Beehive by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0385480113 Publisher: Nan A. Talese Pub. Date: 29 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: FROM THE TEETH OF ANGELS by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0385468415 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 01 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0553561642 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 February, 1993 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: After Silence by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0385473516 Publisher: Main Street Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll ISBN: 0312872437 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 04 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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