| | It's interesting, I think, to experience art made by the same person in different forms. For example, Bob Dylan painted the album cover of The Band's "Music from Big Pink." One of my favorite musical artists, Andrew Peterson, has just published his first novel, called On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. It's a story about three siblings, Janner, Tink, and Leeli Igiby, who live in a small town under an oppressive government, but who all have a taste for adventure. It's a fantastical novel, with evil non-human rulers and mystical lost jewels, sort of in the young adult Harry Potter/Chronicles of Narnia range as far as difficulty and storytelling, so you can read it to your kids, or to your mom, or to strangers on the train. I really do think the appeal is pretty broad. Maybe you don't like fantasy stories, but if you like fiction, and if you like strong thematic elements, I think there's something here for you.
Sure, there are dragons, and there are other whimsically named creatures, like Cave Blats and Quill Diggles, and there are evil lizardy guys, and I like that stuff as much as the next guy, but what really grabbed me while reading OTEOTDSOD wasn't the swordplay, or the secret maps, or even the sea dragons' singing. What drew me in to Peterson's fiction was the same thing that drew me into his music: his expression of deep, sometimes hidden meaning and buried longings of the heart. In the Igiby children, especially Janner, the eldest and most central in the narrative, as in the songs on Peterson's 2005 album The Far Country, there is a feeling of deep-down homesickness, even though he is in the only home he's ever known. This kind of thinking really resonates with me, and I think it's a deeply human, and deeply Christian experience to long for more than you know, for a home beyond the world where you can clearly tell you don't quite belong.
So yes, the storytelling is engaging. Yes, the places and people in the book have fun, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny names, and the book is even peppered with sometimes silly, always fun footnotes. It's a fun read, to be sure. But the deeper, more meaningful experience came for me in noticing the echoes, here in his prose as well and nearly if not completely as clearly as in his song lyrics, of Peterson's awareness that the world we see around us not all that there is. If you're a fan of his music, then I recommend this book. If you've never heard of his music, then I recommend this book, and I recommend his music too. |
| | Posted 3/24/2008 3:34 PM - 45 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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