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ashleylm's review against another edition
3.0
I ought to have liked this even more. I don't know how comic strip readers divide themselves (maybe they don't) but I feel there's "people who like the smart verbal humour of a Peanuts" and then there's "People who don't," and Barnaby seems very much to fit in a smart-Peanuts-people mode, so right up my alley. And yet while I enjoyed it, I never quite loved it.
I can admire its clean minimalist staging ... but it's almost too minimal; everyone's in profile, and they mostly have one mood each, so it can't ever get exciting, no matter how high the stakes. Barnaby calmly accepts, his family disbelieves, O'Malley rationalizes to himself, and Gorgon doesn't care, time and time again.
And one essential feature of the narrative continually rubs me the wrong way: the adults don't see Mr. O'Malley. I wouldn't mind if he were hiding from them, but he's patently not, so it has to be by coincidence that he is never glimpsed given his constant presence. If he were hiding successfully, or Barnaby was keeping him a secret, fine, but it strains credulity that he's inadvertently always away when parents enter or vice versa.
(I'm so glad Sesame Street made a point of allowing Big Bird's friend Snuffleupagus to be seen, after receiving criticism that children should be raised to think their voices mattered and they will be believed).
The stories are sort of cute, and I do like O'Malley's aspirations, but I just can't help but weary of all the you-just-missed-him moments, which presuming were amusing to everyone at the time.
And I'm troubled by Howard, the Indian—not because of the put-on dialect, or the stereotypical costume—but because, so far, all of Mr O'Malley's friends are imaginary creatures; it implies Indians aren't really, any more than pixeys or ghosts or leprechauns.
Note: I have written a novel (not yet published), so now I will suffer pangs of guilt every time I offer less than five stars. In my subjective opinion, the stars suggest:
(5* = one of my all-time favourites, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = actually disappointing, and 1* = hated it. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
I can admire its clean minimalist staging ... but it's almost too minimal; everyone's in profile, and they mostly have one mood each, so it can't ever get exciting, no matter how high the stakes. Barnaby calmly accepts, his family disbelieves, O'Malley rationalizes to himself, and Gorgon doesn't care, time and time again.
And one essential feature of the narrative continually rubs me the wrong way: the adults don't see Mr. O'Malley. I wouldn't mind if he were hiding from them, but he's patently not, so it has to be by coincidence that he is never glimpsed given his constant presence. If he were hiding successfully, or Barnaby was keeping him a secret, fine, but it strains credulity that he's inadvertently always away when parents enter or vice versa.
(I'm so glad Sesame Street made a point of allowing Big Bird's friend Snuffleupagus to be seen, after receiving criticism that children should be raised to think their voices mattered and they will be believed).
The stories are sort of cute, and I do like O'Malley's aspirations, but I just can't help but weary of all the you-just-missed-him moments, which presuming were amusing to everyone at the time.
And I'm troubled by Howard, the Indian—not because of the put-on dialect, or the stereotypical costume—but because, so far, all of Mr O'Malley's friends are imaginary creatures; it implies Indians aren't really, any more than pixeys or ghosts or leprechauns.
Note: I have written a novel (not yet published), so now I will suffer pangs of guilt every time I offer less than five stars. In my subjective opinion, the stars suggest:
(5* = one of my all-time favourites, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = actually disappointing, and 1* = hated it. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
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