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The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar

2 reviews

thecriticalreader's review

adventurous challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

I ordered The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar after reading a positive review from Kirkus Reviews and thinking it sounded interesting.

Blurb:

A man straddles an existence across two parallel universes. One of the universes is our own, in which he waits helplessly in a hospital as his young son lies dying. The other universe is known as the Escapement, which is a mind-bendingly surreal landscape that combines elements from the wild west and the circus. In the Escapement, the man is a lone gunman who fights through the Escapement’s dark, twisted, and violent landscape to find a flower to save his son in the other universe.

Review:

Reading The Escapement evokes the sensation of dreaming. Most of the book takes place in the Escapement, which feels like a nightmare: everything takes inspiration from the real world, but nothing follows a familiar pattern of logic. Despite not making sense, you go along with it and run, terrified, when inhuman monsters chase you. The landscape and surrounding characters can change in a heartbeat. The brief glimpses into the world where the man sits in a hospital feel like those liminal moments when you half wake from a dream, unsure of reality, only to fall back asleep into the dream. I think this was intentional and the author’s part, and I was impressed by his ability to capture that feeling into words. If you have the patience to keep reading even when you have no idea what is going on, you will eventually come to appreciate the book for its creative exploration into the grief of a man who is on the verge of losing a child.

One element of the book sharply hindered my ability to enjoy the story, which was the problematic use of clowns in the narrative. The Escapement and the setting of the same name are clearly inspired by Westerns, a genre known for its problematic representation of Native Americans. Tidhar made the decision to use clowns as stand-ins for the Native American figures in his story. (He even describes them as “indigenous”). If that wasn’t bad enough, these clowns are stated to be a species other than human and are spoken about in a way reminiscent of how many white settlers used dehumanizing language to talk about Native Americans. Most disturbingly, a good part of the book depicts the brutal massacre and enslavement of this clown species. Tidhar was born in Israel and currently lives in Britain, so he is probably not well-educated on the genocide of Indigenous peoples committed by white settlers and the US government, but this is an explanation rather than an excuse.

The Run-Down:

You will probably like The Escapement if:

· You enjoy dream-like, surrealist stories that creatively explore themes and ideas as the main character moves through a strange parallel world (Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth)

· You don’t mind not knowing what is going on for good portions of the book

· You are in the mood for a gritty, violent, and heartbreaking story with at poignant message

You might not like The Escapement if:

· You dislike experimental, surrealist literature and prefer more traditionally structured stories

· You want to feel deeply connected to the characters and the plot

· You feel uncomfortable with the problematic use of clowns as stand-ins for Native American stereotypes

A Similar Book:

The Escapement is like a dark, adult version of The Phantom Tollbooth: instead of a child learning how to love learning about the world, an adult comes to terms with the soul-crushing helplessness of watching his child as he lies dying. Similarities between these books include:

· Protagonist explores a dream-like, nonsensical parallel world

· An episodic structure as the protagonist moves from one strange place to the next

· A lesson or moral to be learned throughout the main character’s quest

Content Warnings

ninjamuse's review

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challenging dark funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar was funny, heartbreaking, surreal, and powerful. It’s about a lone gunman on a quest for a magic flower, in a desert landscape full of Wild West tropes, circus imagery, and elder gods—but it’s also about life on the margins, love, memory, reality, and loss. It’s a story only Tidhar could pull off and he’s done it with aplomb. I went in blind and loved it.

Content Warnings

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