Customer Reviews

Bones of the Moon

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this mainly because I knew that Neil Gaiman of "Sandman" fame had cited Jonathan Carroll as an inspiration. This particular book makes it quite clear the degree to which Mr. Gaiman is indebted to Mr. Carroll.

Major plot points and themes from the "A Game of You" arc of "Sandman" were lifted from "Bones of the Moon". Both feature an adult's return to the dreamworld of their childhood, where they are guided by animal companions on a quest to save the land. And in both, some of these companions will die, and others will turn out to be...not quite what they seem. Oh, yeah, both protagonists have flamboyantly gay best friends, but that's pretty common these days in books, TV, and movies. It's a weird kind of marginalization, in which authors can feel they've shown solidarity with the homosexual community, while not actually elevating any gay or lesbian character to a lead role. But I digress.

In any case, the "real world" settings of this book are largely a European's idea of life in urban America. There are scenes in Italy, where all of the Europeans are cool and interesting and unique. But once in NY, the only characters to drift into play are ethnic street scum and a famous movie director, who talks as if he is not quite of this earth, or perhaps as if he's French and takes himself and his art far too seriously.

The entire book is--perhaps deliberately--permeated with a dream-like look and feel. People talk in odd ways, as if they've had days to think of their lines yet cannot understand their emotional essence. Characters accept improbable revelations all too readily, as if hungering for a connection with something magical. Yet the dreamworld of Rondua is presented in a rather pedestrian fashion, and seems to be a place that's a lot like our world, except with sillier names. This may be by design, as if Carroll is letting the reader fill in the dream reality by his or her self. He's largely content to simply mention things such as the Wooden Mice or the Perfumed Hammer and let the reader decide what these are.

Be that as it may, the book will likely be of interest to any hardcore "Sandman" fans to show how Gaiman has transformed the material for his own purposes.

This is truly an incredible book. Have you ever wondered if what you dreamed was real in some other world? Can you imagine the thrilling possibilities -- and the danger? If you are fascinated by the dissolution of the line between fantasy and reality, this book is a must-read.

Cullen James' wonderful-yet-ordinary life takes a turn for the strange when she starts having dreams about a fantastic land called Rondua and a young boy named Pepsi. As the dreams become more vivid and commanding, Cullen learns that Pepsi is the child she aborted years ago. From that point on, the dreams weave themselves tighter and tighter into Cullen's waking life, until the two cannot be separated and survival in "reality" absolutely depends on success in Rondua.

Jonathan Carroll takes your weirdest mental flights of fancy and makes them real. Anything can happen, and nowhere is "safe".

My college girlfriend passed this book along to me as one of the best examples of a man's reasonable and nuanced perspective on the issues of abortion and motherhood. Bones of the Moon does demonstrate this (it comes as no surprise to me that the author lives in Austria) as well as a fanciful story with great sensory details, sweet oddball characters and a surprising ending. The heroine, Cullen, begins the story with, "The axe boy lived downstairs." If that isn't a compelling introduction, then I haven't found a better one. Cullen is an attractive, young New Yorker. She recently married to a nice guy and gave birth to their daughter. Cullen leads a fulfilling, if somewhat ordinary life, up until she begins to have very vivid dreams of a fantasy world called Rondua. In Rondua, Cullen possesses an uncanny amount of authority over the sentient creatures who live there, mainly due to her connection to a little boy named Pepsi. The dreams somehow inform Cullen that Pepsi is the child she aborted when she was a lonely young woman. Pepsi's destiny points to a significant role in vanquishing an enemy of Rondua, with Cullen aiding him along the way. While the pacing of the story sort of stagnates after the birth of Cullen's child and her settling into life as a mother and wife in Manhattan, it's when Cullen's dream activities and waking life begin to intersect that the story escalates and hurtles us (a little too abruptly) to a shocker of a conclusion.

I really enjoyed all the characters, especially Danny, Cullen's husband, and Pepsi, Cullen's guide in Rondua and supposed lost first kid. I appreciated the transition from Cullen as a confused girl in a crappy relationship who needs to terminate a pregnancy to a competent and happy mom in a committed marriage. Trouble is, we barely get to see any of it. Most of the anxiety-riddled thoughts of Cullen's youth feel rushed over only to bring us to the pat, present-day setting where Cullen and Danny have an excellent thing going on. But once we get to this point, Carroll's storytelling keeps us in the moment and curious about the importance of the Rondua dreams, the crossing over of the dreams into real life and the safety of Cullen and her family.

This was my first exposure to Jonathon Carroll, and I must say that I'm impressed. I picked up the book because I'd heard or seen it mentioned in the same context as Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground. I loved both of those books and hoped to find similarities here. I wasn't dissapointed.

Bones of the Moon managed to be funny, sad and scary, all in a little over 200 pages. It was a quick read, perfect for a weekend escape. I found myself really liking the main character despite her flaws. The land of Rondua, her dreamworld, was charming and remarkably well imagined. John Carroll has written quite a few books, and I imagine they will become one of my staples over the next few months.

Jonathan Carroll is one of my favorite authors, and I spent years trying to track this down. I finally got a copy and it was worth all of the time and energy and waiting.

This book is one of Carroll's earliest, and introduces a number of memorable characters: Cullen James, the main character, and Weber Gregston, who appears in some of Carroll's later books.

This book tells the story of Cullen's vivid dream life, but more importantly it makes some keen observations on courage, love, and friendship. The real pleasure of reading Jonathan Carroll is in finding all of the little nuggets he includes--a vivid description of a street scene, or a sensation, or a new way of looking at something.

Take the plunge & give this book a shot. You won't be sorry.

I've read Carroll's Land of Laughs and found his characterization very impressive in that particular book, although I felt his plot bottomed out toward the ending as it abandoned those previously established traits.

With Bones of the Moon, however, I never really connected with his protagonist, Cullen James, or her friends and family. While they had interesting backgrounds, they simply didn't feel real to me. Because of this, and what I consider awkward dialogue, I couldn't fully immerse myself in Bones of the Moon.

I would like to note that Carroll had an incredible concept. I especially enjoyed the role of abortion in the novel and the psychological undertones that resulted. Carroll did a remarkably nice job of leaving the specifics of the fantasy world that his main character travels to rather vague. At one point, you think that she is slipping into Rondua during her dreams, but then you suspect that it's just the opposite: that Cullen is sliding into our world from Rondua. But then, just when you've about made up your mind one way or the other, Carroll hints that perhaps this is all simply in her head--the mind's way of dealing with an unhealed emotional scar. And then the end of the novel arrives, and all three of these possibilities converge, and you're left with no answers at all.

If this sounds complicated, it is. And, had the dialogue been just a little more practical, I think things might have been different for me. But the dialogue tended to teeter on the edge of hyperbole, and this took me right out of the novel.

I won't give up on Carroll, though. The two novels I've read by him have had some extraordinary qualities and it's obvious that his imagination is superb. Perhaps I'll try one of his more recent works and see what I think since the two I've read were from before 1988.

It should be noted, by the way, that Carroll had rave reviews for Bones of the Moon by none other than Stephen King himself, so take that into consideration.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

Bones of the Moon is a down-the-rabbit-hole sort of fantasy, one that begins in a wholly real Manhattan and ends up traveling through Rondua, a land strange and whimsical enough to rival Poictesme or the Dreamlands or Neverland. The intrusion of the strange in this novel is gradual, the kind of slow seepage one finds in Shirley Jackson or Robert Aickman, and readers will find themselves believing in the thoroughly real world of the protagonists as easily as they will the adventures set in the land of Rondua. It's difficult to talk in detail about the characters and the plot without giving the entire story away, but suffice it to say that everything in the book, however fantastic, develops from a major turning point in the life of Cullen James, Bones' protagonist.

This short novel will appeal to readers who like both thoughtful fantasy and domestic tales. A great part of the story is concerned with the relationship between Cullen and her husband Danny, and the minutiae of their lives, albeit subtly influenced by the fantastic. Carroll, an American-born author residing in Vienna, has won notable literary awards in the U.S., Britain, France, and elsewhere. His skills are on fine display here, from his eerily apt descriptions of imaginary geographies to his nuanced descriptions of Cullen James' reactions to the events that overwhelm her life.

A wonderful & fascinating friend recommended this book simply by saying "It will teach you how to dream!" By a stroke of luck I found it in a second hand book shop, immediately went to a cafe and began reading. 4 hours, and 4 cups of coffee later I emerged from a state of intense emotional and fantastical submersion. I felt like I had just been on an awsome adventure through a Salvador Dali painting and did not want the story to end. That night I had the most incredible, colorful and vivid dreams which I remembered with pure clarity. "Bones" has made my dreams make sense even though they make no sense. I finished the book the next day. I cried, I laughed, I was horrified. I was satisfied! Thankyou my dear friend Mark for you recommendation and thankyou Jonathan Carroll. I look forward to when we next meet....in my dreams!!

I do not think I have ever come across an author quite like Jonathan Carroll. He has a wonderful gift for comedy and dark fantasy. However, while I have absolutely loved two of his books (Sleeping in Flame & The Land of Laughs), I have found some of his other works to be very fragmented and distracting. Bones of the Moon fits into this latter category. The problem with this book (as well as with White Apples) is one of eventual disinterest by the reader. All of the Carroll books I have read grab your attention from the start, but sometimes his novels jump the track and bog down. That is the case with Bones of the Moon. It's as if Carroll is trying to stuff so many things into his story that eventually you are so overwhelmed by characters and nonsense that you just say, "Enough!" I couldn't bring myself to finish a few of Carroll's books because I ultimatley stopped caring about the characters, the plot, and the entire direction of the novel. Mr. Carroll, when you're great, you're one of the best, but when you can't thoroughly engage me, I'm not coming along for the ride.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author, and my least favorite. It's the story of Cullen, a young woman living in NYC who eventually falls in love and marries, and then begins to dream about a magical land where she enters into a quest with her aborted son and their animal companions.

What I have loved about Carroll in his other books is his effortless narration, which makes the appearance of magical elements quite interesting; in this book however, his style is clunky and off-putting (perhaps purposefully, but still not appreciated), making the dream world as well as the "real" world places full of awkward dialogue and groping action. There's a reason we don't want to hear oher people's dreams in lengthy detail, and this protagonist's dreams are no exception. I agree completely with the reviewer who said that Cullen's dream world is just a boring place with silly names. I plodded through to the end, hoping that a writer as talented as Carroll would somehow pull it out of the trash heap toward the end, but no such luck.

IMHO, if you really like this author and want to read everything he's written, go ahead; but if you are new to this author, don't let this be your first of his novels. There are others, much better than this.