Customer Reviews

The King in the Window

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Reading Adam Gopnik's King in the Window is rather like rather as if someone picked you up and deposited you in a foreign country; overwhelming, confusing, and headache inducing. While his prose is certainly competent, his plotting is not.

Oliver is a lonely American boy living with his family in Paris, when one night he puts on a paper crown, looks at himself in a window, and is chosen by the window wraiths as their King. He must defeat the Master of None, an evil magician who steals souls from the other side of mirrors and was the original man in the iron mask, who is seeking to break free of his imprisonment in the Mirror Maze.

Gropnik blends too many elements and ends up satisfying in none; we have ancient French courtiers at Versailles, mixed in with the obligatory crotchety old woman who really has a heart of gold, secret societies to help out the bumbling and clueless hero, magic based on mirrors and windows that didn't *quite* hold up logically, and then we have computers and soul-stealers, and Quantum physics and multiverses, and all we needed were lions and tigers, oh my! I felt like the author was trying to impress me with his cleverness, if we'd been on a date I would have thought he was trying too hard and given him a handshake at the end of the night.

In addition, while Paris is a fantastic setting, and one the author clearly adores, it feels like he's trying to stuff every cool location in the city into one novel. One gets the feeling that this could have been a good novel, if it had gone through two or three more revisions and had a stricter editor. But too many stock fantasy elements, combined with a sprawling plot line that would probably not hold the attention of a middle grade reader, and a too-large cast of supporting characters, doom this novel to the bottom end of mediocre.

The premise behind "The King in the Window" is intriguing -- window wraiths, living in windows, battling the Master of Mirrors with the help of a boy king. From a "New Yorker" writer, however, I'd expect more tightly-written, lively prose -- this book was poorly edited (I'd stumble over at least one disjointed, multi-comma'd phrase each page when reading aloud), and worse, condescending to readers of any age. Think plot summaries every few pages and constant check-ins in question form ("What would Oliver do now?").

I see this book has gotten mixed reviews, but I enjoyed reading it. To summarize briefly: Oliver, an American schoolboy living in Paris, puts a paper crown on his head on Epiphany and is identified and summoned by the Window Wraiths to be their king, and to defeat the Master of the Mirrors, the One with None. Oliver's quest takes him all over Paris: into the Louvre, out to Versailles, into churches and a three-star restaurant, to the Eiffel tower and to other landmarks, while he tries to thwart the One's plot, which is to steal people's souls, first through mirrors and then through a modern-day equivalent. With each new twist, Oliver makes more mistakes, until things reach a crisis point and it is up to him to save the world.

This all gets a bit complicated and headache-y at times, and I don't know how excited today's pre-adolescents are going to be about appearances by Moliere and Racine and Lewis Carroll's Alice. And the talk about Irony and Rhetoric and Metaphor and Wit is clever but seems to me, at least, to be too precious for most of today's kids. But Oliver is an appealing characters, and the story, dense though it may be, is intriguing. The Paris backdrop is an integral part and a lot of fun, and it's being described here by someone who knows and loves it.

And one more thing (and there is a small spoiler here, so read on at your own risk): in addition to saving the world, Oliver also needs to save his own father, an American journalist stationed in Paris, which Adam Gopnik was for a number of years. It's hard not to identify Gopnik with Tyrone's character. This book isn't just fantasy. It becomes a love letter from a father to his son.

The King in the Window is a wonderful story about a boy named Oliver Parker who moves from his home in America to Paris, France. After Oliver eats Epiphany cake, he puts on a paper crown. He then finds a little boy who was outside of his window. He enters a magical world with the window wraiths. ( The window wraiths are the things that you see when you look into a window and see your reflection.)

What I really liked about the book was that there was a good and interesting plot. I thought it was cool that Oliver and his friend Neige had to go and fight their way through the castle to get to the master of the mirrors. The master of the mirrors was made out of extremely cold material and could control people's minds.

Overall though, I thought that The King in the Window was just the right kind of book for me. I loved the plot and I thought it was a mix a funny and serious. It had a lot of intense action and some mysterious parts. Anyone who reads this review should pick it up and give it a shot-- I think that this book will one day become an award winning movie.
--Miles Rosenthal, Chicago

As delicious as a fresh pain au chocolat and cafe au lait! I quite enjoyed Mr. Gopnik's first book, as well as his work in The New Yorker. I was sucked right in to this book and finished it in several big gulps. I can see where some reviewers weren't completely enchanted, as I sometimes had the sense that this story was written to help his son through some difficult concepts at school. But I didn't find this distracting and it fit the hero's character. His friend from America is a bit broadly drawn, but again that helps the contrast between France and America with the hero as a bridge between societies, just as he bridges worlds through windows and mirrors. I'm a bit beyond the age group recommended for this book and my sons are still too little, but I think the book would be good for the kind of kids who like Narnia, Harry Potter, and Edward Eager.

Happy reading!

I bought this book for my kids because both my son and I so enjoyed Gopnik's book, Paris to the Moon. While I did like parts of the book, and it starts well, the plot simply becomes too convoluted and confusing for the book as a whole to succeed. Complication upon complication are added, alternative realities, the mirror maze, lost children, and on and on until it simply overwhelms the reader. If the book had been simpler and shorter it would have been much more effective. In addition, Gopnik's inspiration seems to fade at times and he repeats words in an annoying way. Oliver, the main character, is "inexorably" pulled towards a mirror on page 97, Charlie is "inexorably" sucked into an ice cube on page 192, Oliver and Neige are "inexorably" pulled along on pages 210, 215, and 221. Use a thesaurus!

Even given that, as I said, there is some enjoyment to be found. My daughter and I visited the little known (at least to most Americans) Musee Grevin a few weeks before reading the part of the book where Oliver also rushes to the same museum. Continually finding places in Paris referenced that we had visited was nice, but for life in Paris find Gopnik's earlier book and read it.

This is a wonderful book. After a slightly rocky start, the reader is swept away at a furious pace. Though you may struggle to understand some of the ins and outs of the mirrors and windows the first time around, it doesn't matter because you will surely read it again. The characters are fully drawn and it is a pleasure to read a book by an author who so truly can inhabit his alternate universe. It is also a book filled with feeling, though based on the premise that is important to think. Five stars or should I say cinques étoiles.

I recently picked this book up in the airport during a layover. I had purchased another book, started to read it, and went back to the bookstore to find something else. THIS book kept my attention from beginning to end. There are a lot of different themes running through this book and I wondered how different strands would get wrapped up but this author managed to pull it off. Yes, it's fantasy and hard to imagine that an 11 year old child would have the growth that takes place in the span of a week (duration of the book) but that's the delightful nature of children's novels. I particularly enjoyed the banter about metaphor vs. similie, precision of language, etc. Good word play. I look forward to my 11-year-old son's opinion. I think the riddles will particularly interest him.

Written by Adam Gopnik, a New Yorker staff writer, THE KING IN THE WINDOW takes place in Paris. Its hero is Oliver Parker, a 12-year-old American boy living in Paris with his parents.

But it is winter in Paris, a dark, gloomy, depressing season. And Oliver is not happy. He misses his friends, dislikes his French school, and is lonely. To make matters worse, his father is a busy journalist who is always slaving over his computer and has little time for Oliver.

One night --- it happens to be Epiphany --- Oliver is staring out his kitchen window, wearing a gold paper crown that came with the Epiphany cake. Suddenly, another boy appears in the window's reflection; he is dressed in an old-fashioned doublet and calls Oliver "Your Majesty."

Did I say this book has everything? You'll be whirled away in a fantastic flight of fact and fantasy. You'll learn important French vocabulary. You'll eat in a very fancy French restaurant and enjoy the most lavish French food. Along with Oliver, you'll meet Moliere and Racine and hear a discussion about the difference between a simile and a metaphor. You'll visit actual French sights, including Versailles. You'll even be part of a basic philosophy discussion.

And above all, you'll enter the mystical world of the Window Wraiths and the Master of Mirrors as Oliver, armed with a glass sword and his little band of friends, go through the looking glass and enter the Mirror Maze in order to fight the Mirror Master and make the world safe for the Window Wraiths.

Oliver's band includes a weird assortment of people. There's the imperious, elegant and witty Mrs. Pearson; Charlie, Oliver's friend from the States who is a wild, cutting-edge skateboarder; and there's even a touch of romance (after all, this is Paris) as we meet the beautiful Neige, who lives in Oliver's building and is much, much more than just a neighbor.

THE KING IN THE WINDOW is historical and slightly hysterical. It veers from fact to fiction and from present to past. But it never stops being highly entertaining, enchanting and enthralling.

--- Reviewed by Robert Oksner ([...])

I think I'd describe this as mindboggling AND superb. I found Adam Gopnik's The King in the Window a fascinating read.

The book starts out normally enough- a young boy, Oliver, and his family, living in Paris. However, when he puts on a crown that came courtesy of a cake from a bakery, he sees a reflection in the window that looks like him...but isn't him. And so begins a insane and thrilling and quirky journey.

I read this a while ago but from what I recall, Gopnik blends fantasy and adventure and technology and so much more, into a wonderful book. There are so many elements going on in this book, and I really loved how Gopnik invokes characters from classic stories (not going to spoiler-ify this though, so I'll keep mum) into his plot. There is a alternate universe(-ish) reminiscent of China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, and the concepts that Gopnik introduced made me really think. In that way, it's mindboggling. It's definitely a journey of self-discovery for Oliver- oh, and along the way, he saves the world!

Overall, an good, imaginative book.