Still not working, I have spent a lot of my down time reading. Before leaving for DC I packed a recent acquisition with me, The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. I had seen it in a used bookstore in Berkeley, CA, but the store was cash only and I had no cash on me. So i made a mental note of the book, and bought it online. Given the large amount of free time I have, even though it is roughly 700 pages, I have finished it.
As a side-note, reading for pleasure is such a welcome change. I don't know how long it has been since I have really read for pleasure, either due to time constraints or "reading burnout" from 90% of my out-of-class work being reading material. It is really nice to just read a great story. So I am grateful to this book for letting me rediscover the simple pleasure of just reading a story.
The Review:
The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear is a novel written by German author Walter Moers. If I had to describe the book in one word, it would be: delightful. This novel is essentially a children's story for adults. I imagine that children would like it as well, but it also should appeal to any adults who still retain child-like wonder at a good story.
Part fantasy, part adventure story, the novel tells the tale of Bluebear, a blue bear who lives on the mythical continent of Zamonia. It tells the story of the first half of his life -- or rather, the first 13.5 of his 27 lives as a Bluebear (as all Bluebears have 27 lives). A "life" in the story is essentially a chapter in the novel, each chapter describing a distinct time, in a distinct place, where Bluebear got into a distinct adventure. The reader follows Bluebear as he goes through all of these stages of the first 13.5 periods in his life, from adventure to adventure.
This is not a profound novel in the way that something by an author like Kafka or Cormac McCarthy is "profound." It does not to aspire to pretensions of being the next great work of literature. But in its own unassuming way, it is, because the author gives over completely to a world of uninhibited imagination. And he is able to do so through compelling storytelling such that the reader cares about the characters, even though they are wacky and fantastical, such as the blob-like alien Gelatine Prince Qwerty from the 2364th dimension. I have read a lot of books and novels and short stories; I tend to be kind of an at-arms-length reader, so I often don't get personally invested in (or react to) the characters any more than a standard reader would in order to enjoy the story. That being said, in all those stories and books, I have rarely had such a palpable dislike or outright hostility towards a character, than I had towards one of the main villains in the novel, a equally fantastical and not-at-all-real Trogolotroll. I think that the fact that the author can elicit such emotion and response from readers to characters who, by their basic external descriptions, are patently absurd, is a testament to the compelling strength and effectiveness of Moers' storytelling, plot and character development. The novel succeeds because while it maintains an almost childlike creativity in putting the world of Zamonia to paper, it manages to realistically convey experiences and emotional responses to those experiences that the adult reader would recognize from our own world. As a law student who spends her days in the mire of the very real reality of everyday life, of always looking at the world through the lens of the completely logical and sound, escaping to this world of gleeful non-logic and zaniness, was a welcome and much-needed break. As a law student or lawyer, you sometimes get moments where you can be creative (think of defenses like "the Twinkie defense"), but don't often get moments where you can imagine. I thank this book for allowing me to do so.
Other reviewers of the book (on Amazon.com) have said that the novel is stylistically and structurally similar to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that if the reader enjoys Hitcherhiker's, he or she will enjoy Bluebear. Having never read Hitchhiker's, I cannot attest to the validity of this statement. But, I can say that if you are an adult who enjoys stories that celebrate imagination, that give over to the fun of storytelling, while all the while retaining something fundamentally and recognizably "human" in the experiences it relates, then you will enjoy this novel.
The novel is, as I said, a bit over 700 pages, but is actually a pretty quick read. The language is not complicated, and it is quick-paced. It is also interspersed with equally delightful illustrations of the characters and Zamonian landscape, which cuts down on the actual word-length of the novel.
Overall, I would give the book 8.5/10.
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