FICTION: The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt

The book was originally written in Dutch, & the original title is De brief voor de koning. I read the translation by Laura Watkinson.

Image from Goodreads

At a glance: children's fiction, adventure, not-English


From Goodreads:

The rule-book says that a young man who is to be knighted by King Dagonaut must pass the eve of the grand ceremony in silent vigil. However, Young Tiuri, son of the famous Tiuri the Valiant, breaks the rules - he opens the door to a stranger, who begs him to deliver a secret letter to the Black Knight with the White Shield. The letter is destined for the ruler of the neighbouring realm, King Unauwen, and concerns a matter of paramount importance. 

Tiuri accepts this dangerous mission, but when he arrives at the appointed place deep in the forest, he finds the Knight dying, murdered by the vicious Red Riders. As he races to deliver the letter to King Unauwen in the Knight's stead, Tiuri is pursued by the Red Riders, who threaten his life - but he is determined to fulfil his promise: the Black Knight must not have died in vain.

I took the liberty of splitting up the paragraph & adding a full stop.



Luna comments

I'm looking for foreign-language stories at the moment, and apparently this is one of the most well-known Dutch children's books. That sounds like a good starting point.

I quite enjoyed this story! It may be because it's been so long since I last read something like this - a pure questing type story with nothing on the side. This story is purely about Tiuri getting from point A to point B without getting killed.

Now, I'm not saying that it's easy to write this story, but the overall simplicity of the plot made it a light & enjoyable read. At 400+ pages, it's incredibly long for its genre and age category (but that's by the standards I've known, which may well be different for the time period and nationality of this story), but I didn't mind at all. Wow, I miss being a child, in this aspect at least.

I really liked the setting of this story. It's set in medieval-like times, with lords and ladies and castles and knights. I enjoyed the descriptions of the places that Tiuri came to - the towns and cities, the forest, the mountains.

This being purely an adventure story, the characters don't have a great deal of opportunity to show various facets of themselves. But I liked them nevertheless. I liked Tiuri's determination, Piak's optimism and quickness, I liked the various people who decided to help them even though they didn't exactly know why Tiuri & Piak were in trouble. I liked how other characters, except those from the 'bad guys' side', helped Tiuri in some way, instead of being opportunistic. So despite the greater threat looming over them, it was a pleasant world and that made me very happy. =]

I'm also going to add that the author illustrates the pictures in this book as well =] So you get an illustration for each part - eight in total. Just a nice touch.

Closing

It's a nice adventure story suitable for children =] and over-sized, over-aged 'children' like me =] and maybe you too - who knows?

FICTION: Momo by Michael Ende

Happy New Year! & happy start to my blog, I guess.

I can't reasonably start this blog without a reference to my favourite book of all time: Momo by Michael Ende.

Image from Amazon.com

Audience/At a glance

Momo is ostensibly a children's fantasy, but it is actually an allegorical in nature, about how people choose to allocate their time. It's suitable both to be read like any other fantasy story, or to be read more deeply and have meanings extracted from the text.

From Amazon.com

At the edge of the city, in the ruins of an old amphitheatre, there lives a little homelss girl called Momo. Momo has a special talent which she uses to help all her friends who come to visit her. Then one day the sinister men in grey arrive and silently take over the city. Only Momo has the power to resist them, and with the help of Professor Hora and his strange tortoise, Cassiopeia, she travels beyond the boundaries of time to uncover their dark secrets.

For Goodreads users

Here is the page for this edition, & here is the page with many more editions.

Note about editions 

The novel was written in German.

The first English translation I read, and my favourite translation, is by John Brownjohn, and the above cover is for that edition. The John Brownjohn translation is also the one on which I'm writing this post. There is a newer one, by Lucas Zwirner.

Luna comments

Reading the summary, it sounds as though Momo has a superpower, which she doesn't (at least not in the sense of the Marvel/DC superheroes). Her special talent is just listening - she can help people solve their problems simply by listening to them. 

Back to the story.

General comments

I absolutely love this novel. I think this novel is pretty much the closest that any novel can get to my idea of 'everything done right'.

The central theme of this story is about time, and how people choose to allocate it. To rip a quote from the book: 

Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.

Perhaps in line with this, the story begins slowly, meandering through Momo's scant backstory, friendships and neighbourhood. It's slow, but it's never boring. The pace picks up about a quarter of the way in, but it's worth the wait.

I enjoyed the plot a lot =] I don't want to say too much because I don't want to deprive anyone of the experience of reading it with relatively few prejudices.

John Brownjohn is an excellent translator, and the writing is lyrical and soothing without being ostentatious. I really like the fairy-tale-like atmosphere created by the prose. It's a shame that none of the (more recent?) English editions feature the original pictures drawn by the author, for example, the book cover:

Image from the Thienemann-Esslinger website.

Momo isn't a typical hero or heroine, even though she's very much like a typical child. In the face of the crisis, she's lost and clueless, and unsure of how to proceed. Her actions are very much reactive, rather than proactive. Refreshingly, her triumph isn't due to her physical or mental superiority, but her circumstances and her special ability to listen. I do enjoy a good physical or mental battle, but it's nice to see something different.

Despite this being an allegorical tale, and despite Ende not being subtle about his message, it never feels as if he's forcing his readers to accept his viewpoint. His ideas are elegantly woven through the characters and plot. This is one of the books in which, the more you read it, the more you see in it.

Things to look out for (i.e. my favourite scenes)

• Girolamo's stories and tall tales, some of which he tells to unsuspecting tourists who think they're listening to a tour guide.
• The Men in Grey roping in one of their first victims, a barber named Figaro.
• Momo's first meeting with old friends after she returns from a visit to Professor Hora, and seeing the way the world has changed since she left.

Closing

It'd be nice if Momo were required reading for school, except I don't want anyone to have bad memories of it just because they were forced to read it. Anyway, I think that Momo is almost perfect in terms of children's literature, and that you should really read it if you haven't already. Consider re-reading if you have. =]

I also wouldn't mind seeing a Studio Ghibli take on it. (Or any other anime/cartoon versions, as long as it's 'done right' & to my liking =P It's just that so far, I feel that Studio Ghibli & select other anime directors would be more likely to get the tone right.)