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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Teetering on [enter title here], September 26, 2007
A question was posed recently on the Horn Book blog run by Roger Sutton about what it would be like if reviewers never knew the names of the authors of the books they read and critique. It's an interesting idea. No human being is a blank slate, after all. You can't help but acquire little prejudices and preconceptions as you become more and more familiar with a writer's work. Sometimes you, the reviewer, are going to have to face facts about one author or another; You're just not that big a fan of their work. Take me, for example. If you asked me what I thought of E.L. Konigsburg I would yelp a quick, "I liked The View from Saturday," and hope to high heaven that you'd leave it at that. Fact of the matter is, I read "A View from Saturday" a long time ago. Maybe I'd feel the same about it now as I did the first time I perused it. Maybe not. You see as of right now I'm just not that into Konigsburg. I recognize her importance in the field of children's literature. I appreciate her stories and her characters and her plots. I'm just not that big a fan of her writing or her dialogue, and this makes it difficult for me to read her books. So when I found myself in possession of "The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World" I decided (yet again) to put aside my assumptions and just enjoy the ride. I failed in this. So basically I'm telling you right off the bat that if you want an unbiased review, look elsewhere. I can only write what I myself perceive, and what I perceive before me is a book that isn't quite sure who its audience is.
Sixth grader Amedeo Kaplan has just moved to St. Malo, Florida from New York and he's in a bit of a rut. He has no friends, Florida is really humid, there are lovebugs mating all over his arms, and he has yet to discover something. Amedeo would kill to discover something ANYTHING, but so far he's been plumb out of luck. Enter William Wilcox. A loner and the son of a woman who runs estate sales, William has recently been seen entering the home of the amazing Mrs. Zender and Amedeo wants to know why. After all, Mrs. Zender is a former opera star with a home full of antiques, treasures, and mysteries galore. It doesn't take long for Amedeo to insinuate himself into the home as well and soon he's helping William pack up Mrs. Zender's things. She'll be entering a home before too long, but before she does Amedeo is certain that this is the place to discover the one thing no one else could find except for him. Turns out, he's absolutely right.
One librarian I spoke to about this book noted that she liked it but that, "it wasn't a children's book." She may have a point there. Certain elements in the story made it pretty clear from the get-go that this was a title for the mature. For example, it is not unheard of for a children's book to follow both a child and an adult as they go about their daily lives but usually the adult is either an antagonist or someone with a story that is just as interesting as that of the child. So the sections of the book following Peter Vanderwaal (whose connection to Amedeo is so tenuous and odd that you're left wondering why Peter wasn't just made the boy's uncle or something) seem very adult. Plus, the boys' relationship to Mrs. Zender and one another sort of has the feel of a coming-of-age tale more than anything else. If Amedeo and William had experienced a tender first kiss with one another, I wouldn't have blinked an eye in surprise. The whole enterprise has a mature sensibility. Heck the conversations about how Mrs. Zender would always play a "boy or a bitch" and how her fans "all wanted to sleep with me", up the ante right there.
The writing itself also gives the general feeling that the author was working on a plain above and beyond her child readership. Sometimes the dialogue ends up getting so symbolic that you're left wondering what on earth Konigsburg is talking about. The discussion of how William's mother, "turns away anger", for example. Other times it's just plain confusing. I guess that William is supposed to be of a different class than Amedeo, but when he suddenly starts saying sentences like "Ma, they got eyes in their heads. They can see what all we got," it seems at odds with his earlier more eloquent lines.
One of the other problems I had with this book was the character of Mrs. Zender herself. The intention here is to display someone eccentric and extraordinary. A person who has her faults but is, in the end, lovable because she is true to herself. And while that may have been the intention, I couldn't help but really dislike Mrs. Zender. She was rude, classist, sexist, vain, callous, and even when she is being helpful she does it in such a roundabout way that you're left feeling she's more of a hindrance than a help to the boys. In a final surprise (which I shall not reveal here) Mrs. Zender ends up helping Amedeo in his quest to discover something by being completely and entirely passive. In principle this is a good idea, since you never want your heroes to be helped too much by the adults around them. Then again, Mrs. Zender's passivity is so heavy and harmful that the fact that she isn't completely apologetic by the book's end about her actions doesn't do much to instill a love for her in the heart of the reader.
It comes down to this; in the world Konigsburg has created here, the adults are far more interesting than the children. Reading through this book I got the distinct feeling that this would have made a far better stage play than title for the 10-14 set. The awkward sentences and too long pauses would fit better if read aloud by adults in front of an audience. Here they simply stand on the page looking awkward and out of place. The writing is fine but it doesn't always fit. The result is a frustrating title that doesn't quite know who it wants to speak to. Whenever a librarian faces a children's book that seems tailor made for only a particular kind of child we call it a "special book". I cannot say for certain, though, whether any child would enjoy "The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World". It seems not to have been written for them at all.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Konigsburg triumph, October 5, 2007
"The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World" is a companion piece to "Silent to the Bone" and "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place." It stands on its own, but the three novels enrich and cross pollinate one another even though they are not "sequels" or "prequels." Because it involves an art mystery, it is also a descendant of Konisgburg's Newbery Award winning novel, "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." But what a descendant it is.
As you have probably read in the previous reviews, this novel addresses the art that was stolen during the Holocaust. In some places it becomes a primer on "Degenerate Art" and on the Nazi persecution of Jews, homosexuals, Roma (gypsies) and other non-Aryan "undesirables." (There are generalizations about the Germans in World War II, some of which certain readers may find disturbing, though they come from the mouth of a character--Leilani Vanderwaal--who has survived the German occupation of Holland, and whose point of view--stated simply and almost eerily without drama--is entirely understandable.)
"Mysterious Edge" is redolent with literary resonance: names like Fortinbras, Epiphany, Amadeo, and even Lancaster (remember the War of the Roses and how the House of Tudor established itself?) dance along with everyday life in a small, heat-stifled Florida town, giving the narrative a quirky depth. Even the name of the town, St.Malo, recalls the real St. Malo, the walled French town that became notorious as the home of privateers and pirates, reminding us in yet another way of theft, murder and betrayal.
Konigsburg's novel is filled with coincidences, but not the kind that seem contrived--the kind that seem destined, at least to this reader, who has experienced numerous odd coincidences over the course of her life. Amadeo Kaplan sets out to do something important, to discover something important, and what he discovers are not only artistic masterpieces long buried, but an unexpected best friend, William Wilcox, and a eccentric neighbor, former opera "diva" Mrs. Zender, whose past holds secrets that are nearly unbearable, more so because of their common re-occurrence on the stage of world history. The Holocaust is but one of humankind's continuing attempts to eradicate parts of itself. Mrs. Zender is certainly one of fiction's most memorable characters. (In her own way she rivals Mrs. Coulter of Philip Pullman's masterful "His Dark Materials" trilogy.)
Konigsburg is a great writer. Read the section describing Amadeo's first encounter with Mrs. Zender's kitchen and her rotary dial princess phone, just shortly after the book commences. Read it out loud so you can savor every word.
Can you tell I loved this book? I loved the characters, the wit, how each chapter ended, how the book ended. I was left with the truth: life is inherently mysterious and just living is an heroic act. We are always on the edge of something--we know not what until we get there. And art can not only be redeemed, art itself redeems us.
Thank you, E.L. Konigsburg for yet another thoughtful, intelligent, moving novel.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It puts you on the edge of you seat., October 3, 2007
A Kid's Review
I really love this book. Very impressive. Very funny and sad. I cried my heart out. I didn't want it to end.
I want to recommend this book for those who love art, history, feminism, and truth. Not only for kids but also for grown-ups. The greatest book I've ever read. Definitely.
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