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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
This score is probably lower than the book deserves because magical realism isn't my genre of choice so the story didn't hook me, but Carroll has a very lovely writing style. It's reminiscent of Bradbury.
While I enjoyed this book, I also think it's a big tease. You know things are a little amiss when Tom and Saxony enter Galen, but you don't start to see why until about page 175. The things I wanted to read more about where briefly mentioned, and the focus on the book was more-so on the day to day. It teased me, this one did.
A spiky, odd and unsettling book that slowly descends into an eerie fantasy along with the (possibly unreliable) narrator. The Land of Laughs echoes Borges and Robert Aickman in tone and sentiment, trying to move beyond genre classification and succeeding hard. The ending will haunt me for at least a few days.
How should I say this... I liked it, and yet I didn’t?
The premise was an interesting one - meandering English teacher who feels as though his life is slowly wasting away comes across a female who loves the same author he does; they both go on an adventure to the origins of this author in an attempt to write a biography; they meet the daughter of the author and odd things start happening (cue magic!).
.... but. Some sexist infidelity starts going on, and Abbey’s loyal girl just puts up with it (“I’ll go over to the nearest town and wait three months for you to get this affair out of your system! Oh and while you’re at it and I’m sick and alone in the town, I’ll still be doing research for your little project that literally was the cause of our relationship breakdown”)? And the chick that Abbey starts bonking is cruel and taunts him, and yet he still keeps going back? What a bit of a shoe end.
I was hoping to see Gallen appearing at the end after all the crap that he put Abbey, Saxony, and the town through - but noooooo, it had to end with an explosion? I felt like that was a massive cop-out. It’s like you’re reading a disgusting horror on the same level as Poe (not to say he was disgusting) but then at the end, the story ends with “Aaron then shot out of bed with a gasp and realised that all that had transpired was just a dream”. Ugh.
It was interesting but so many things bothered me about it and I hated the ending.
The premise was an interesting one - meandering English teacher who feels as though his life is slowly wasting away comes across a female who loves the same author he does; they both go on an adventure to the origins of this author in an attempt to write a biography; they meet the daughter of the author and odd things start happening (cue magic!).
.... but. Some sexist infidelity starts going on, and Abbey’s loyal girl just puts up with it (“I’ll go over to the nearest town and wait three months for you to get this affair out of your system! Oh and while you’re at it and I’m sick and alone in the town, I’ll still be doing research for your little project that literally was the cause of our relationship breakdown”)? And the chick that Abbey starts bonking is cruel and taunts him, and yet he still keeps going back? What a bit of a shoe end.
I was hoping to see Gallen appearing at the end after all the crap that he put Abbey, Saxony, and the town through - but noooooo, it had to end with an explosion? I felt like that was a massive cop-out. It’s like you’re reading a disgusting horror on the same level as Poe (not to say he was disgusting) but then at the end, the story ends with “Aaron then shot out of bed with a gasp and realised that all that had transpired was just a dream”. Ugh.
It was interesting but so many things bothered me about it and I hated the ending.
Comedians don't tell jokes about flying on airplanes because those jokes are inherently funnier than any others. They tell those jokes because they spend a great deal of their time in transit.
When authors write stories about authors who are struggling to write, I find it just as tiring as yet another joke about airline food (or the lack thereof, amirite?) Ugh.
This book's plot was slow, and focused on an English Teacher's attempt to write a biography of his favorite author. If you're an author, and have struggled to write something you cared about a great deal, then you might enjoy this story.
I didn't.
I had already passed the 2/3 point in this book when the plot finally began to pick up. Even then the plot moved forward in fits and starts. The climax of the book was actually exciting, but the payoff was too small to justify the slog that preceded it.
It didn't help that I didn't sympathize with the characters. The protagonist is a self-centered jerk with no real redeeming qualities (other than a love of books). I believe many of the supporting cast are actually deliberately two-dimensional, but that doesn't make them any less irritating to read about.
When authors write stories about authors who are struggling to write, I find it just as tiring as yet another joke about airline food (or the lack thereof, amirite?) Ugh.
This book's plot was slow, and focused on an English Teacher's attempt to write a biography of his favorite author. If you're an author, and have struggled to write something you cared about a great deal, then you might enjoy this story.
I didn't.
I had already passed the 2/3 point in this book when the plot finally began to pick up. Even then the plot moved forward in fits and starts. The climax of the book was actually exciting, but the payoff was too small to justify the slog that preceded it.
It didn't help that I didn't sympathize with the characters. The protagonist is a self-centered jerk with no real redeeming qualities (other than a love of books). I believe many of the supporting cast are actually deliberately two-dimensional, but that doesn't make them any less irritating to read about.
There are two tropes which appear with a level of frequency in magical realism:
1) the protagonist finds out a childhood fantasy world he read about/watched on tv is actually real
2) an artist discovers their creations come to life
Neither of these is new, and neither is especially done with any level of freshness or originality here, but the Land of Laughs is still somehow a pleasant and enjoyable read. If you've read anything remotely like it before - and chances are you have - the "twists" will be seen a mile away, but you'll not hate yourself for having gone on the journey.
1) the protagonist finds out a childhood fantasy world he read about/watched on tv is actually real
2) an artist discovers their creations come to life
Neither of these is new, and neither is especially done with any level of freshness or originality here, but the Land of Laughs is still somehow a pleasant and enjoyable read. If you've read anything remotely like it before - and chances are you have - the "twists" will be seen a mile away, but you'll not hate yourself for having gone on the journey.
La primera novela de Carroll que leí fue esta, editada por Ultramar Fantasía en 1989, que encontré ocho años después y de ahí, recomendé a todos los amigos que pude. Aunque es dificil explicar la trama sin destripar la historia y porque en verdad es difícil de explicar (algo que le pasa en mayor o menor medida a todos los libros de Carroll) se trata de dos fanáticos de un autor de novelas que van a su ciudad natal a buscar más libros del autor y ahí todo se tuerce. Las novelas de Carroll suelen ser divertidas e inquietantes, generando una atmósfera normal aunque pasen cosas rarísimas todo el tiempo. Una etiqueta que no me gusta que le ponen a sus libros es «realismo mágico» pero creo que ha inventado un género en sí mismo, uniendo terror, fantasía y ciencia ficción, todo en uno.
Thomas Abbey has always loved the books by Marshall France, you may even say he's obsessed with them. He has a copy of just about every book written by the famed (and fictional) author and has an inheritance from his famous father that allows him to pay big bucks for even the rarest publications.
Abbey, who is also a school English teacher, decides he wants to write a biography of his favorite author even though he's never written anything in his life. He manages to run into a fellow France-obsessed fan in his endeavors and they proceed to visit the mysterious town where France did the majority of his writing and where he escaped the limelight.
The Land of Laughs is really a book for book lovers. I'm sure if you've found yourself here on Goodreads, you may have been borderline obsessive about an author or two in your life and even currently, so this book is extremely easy to relate to in that respect.
If this doesn't make perfect sense to you, I don't know what will:
“Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going through Secaucus, New Jersey -- it smells and you wish you weren't there, but since you've started the trip, you roll up the windows and breathe through your mouth until you're done.”
Then again, I've gotten over my need to read through everything I start. Life's way too short for that.
The Land of Laughs is considered a fantasy, but most of the book has almost nothing fantastical about it. It could also very easily be described as a horror, at least just as much as it can be considered fantasy because there were some truly spine-tingling scenes toward the end that are worth the read alone.
What impressed me almost immediately is that this is Carroll's debut novel and he's writing about a fictional author who's legendary in this novel he's created. Naturally, you have to prove at least to some degree why this person is such a beloved author. I guess you don't have to necessarily, but it would be much harder to make it believable. And yet, some of the lines from this fictional author are beautiful and therefore completely believable in all respects.
Similar to Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, The Land of Laughs is a book of many other books. Many of the famous books that are fictionally written by Marshall France are explained and even plotted even though never written in real life. Carroll even gives us lines from the books which are splendid and as I said above, purvey the beauty of France's writing.
The eponymous book is actually France's most famous book:
"The eyes that light The Land of Laughs was lit by eyes that saw the light's that no one's seen."
There were a few lines like this that just made me smile and enchanted me to no end. I wish I could find more of them right now because they're excellent and really do provide a magical quality to the story and writing both.
In addition, the rest of The Land of Laughs is written in a clever way that resonated really well with me. The first person narrative of Thomas Abbey is clever, but in a self-depricating way. In a book where I should have been bored by the slow start, I was enamored from the beginning.
This story has that magical aspect to it that makes reading an experience. Neil Gaiman doest this to me as well with the same sort of wit and charm. Add to that the twist at the end and this is one of those books that's impossible to forget.
4 out of 5 Stars (Highly Recommended)
Abbey, who is also a school English teacher, decides he wants to write a biography of his favorite author even though he's never written anything in his life. He manages to run into a fellow France-obsessed fan in his endeavors and they proceed to visit the mysterious town where France did the majority of his writing and where he escaped the limelight.
The Land of Laughs is really a book for book lovers. I'm sure if you've found yourself here on Goodreads, you may have been borderline obsessive about an author or two in your life and even currently, so this book is extremely easy to relate to in that respect.
If this doesn't make perfect sense to you, I don't know what will:
“Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going through Secaucus, New Jersey -- it smells and you wish you weren't there, but since you've started the trip, you roll up the windows and breathe through your mouth until you're done.”
Then again, I've gotten over my need to read through everything I start. Life's way too short for that.
The Land of Laughs is considered a fantasy, but most of the book has almost nothing fantastical about it. It could also very easily be described as a horror, at least just as much as it can be considered fantasy because there were some truly spine-tingling scenes toward the end that are worth the read alone.
What impressed me almost immediately is that this is Carroll's debut novel and he's writing about a fictional author who's legendary in this novel he's created. Naturally, you have to prove at least to some degree why this person is such a beloved author. I guess you don't have to necessarily, but it would be much harder to make it believable. And yet, some of the lines from this fictional author are beautiful and therefore completely believable in all respects.
Similar to Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, The Land of Laughs is a book of many other books. Many of the famous books that are fictionally written by Marshall France are explained and even plotted even though never written in real life. Carroll even gives us lines from the books which are splendid and as I said above, purvey the beauty of France's writing.
The eponymous book is actually France's most famous book:
"The eyes that light The Land of Laughs was lit by eyes that saw the light's that no one's seen."
There were a few lines like this that just made me smile and enchanted me to no end. I wish I could find more of them right now because they're excellent and really do provide a magical quality to the story and writing both.
In addition, the rest of The Land of Laughs is written in a clever way that resonated really well with me. The first person narrative of Thomas Abbey is clever, but in a self-depricating way. In a book where I should have been bored by the slow start, I was enamored from the beginning.
This story has that magical aspect to it that makes reading an experience. Neil Gaiman doest this to me as well with the same sort of wit and charm. Add to that the twist at the end and this is one of those books that's impossible to forget.
4 out of 5 Stars (Highly Recommended)
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Re-read in 2015. Thought a lot less of it than I did the first time around. The protagonist is a boor and bore, and the creepy town isn't nearly as creepy to early 30s Ben as it was to early 20s Ben.