Customer Reviews

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

"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.

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.

This book is about a new and strong friendship formed between two twelve year old boys, Amedeo and William, when helping William's mother, who owns an Estate Sales Company. Amedeo and his mother, a Cell Phone Executive, had just moved to St. Malo, Florida. Everyday after school, the two boys sorted through and inventory the old treasurers owned by Mrs. Zender, Amedeo's eccentric and once wealthy neighbor, for an estate sale in her run-down mansion. With each room and each item, Mrs. Zender revealed her past. Throughout the book, William and Amedeo's friendship was weakened, strengthened, and tested. In the mean time, Peter Vanderwaal, Amedeo's godfather, was hosting an exhibit of Degenerate Art, modern art prohibited by the Nazi's, at the Sheboygan Art Center in Wisconsin. Through a sketch done by a famous Jewish Degenerate artist, Modigliani (1884-1920), which Amedeo found in Mrs. Zender's house, the characters are connected.
The book is full of vivid descriptions, especially of Mrs. Zender, and has an exciting plot twist at the end, which I won't spoil for you! You can just see Mrs. Zender waltzing through her house, in her Opera costume of the day. In addition, it was interesting how the author showed different perspectives of the meaning of righteousness. Mrs. Vanderwaal thought that there were no excuses not to do the right thing; that the world revolves around rules that we must follow in our lives. William and William's mother just worried about staying in business, even if it meant being walked-over or looking the other way. Mrs. Zender, who was spoiled and entitled, didn't mind breaking rules, or the law. She was just bending it a little, and believed that there is no good and bad, just an in-between. Finally, Amedeo didn't really care about what was right and what was wrong, just his goal of discovering something that was lost, but not missed, just like his heroes had done. The only negative thing about this book is that the title is too long and not catchy. What a mouthful!!!

Three stars for average.

The story is slow and the characters are inconsistent, but the sections related to lost and stolen art by the Nazis were interesting to read. I enjoyed the fictionalized (of course) stories of the young men in an art shop on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam trying to save the loss of great art the Nazis had condemned as "degenerate art". I can imagine such fictionalized accounts of this type of activity probably aren't too far from truth.

In terms of the characters I didn't like the development of the two young teen boys. At one moment they were talking like one might expect a teen to speak, for example, poor grammar. Then a bit later they were discussing great works of art like they were well educated, sophisticated adults. It just grated on me.

The story really didn't get interesting in terms of the discovery of lost art and solving the mystery of its origin until about the final 1/4 of the book. A lot of what came before that seemed to be fluffy filler.

Finally, though it's billed as a "teen" book I can't imagine many teens would spend their time with this one. It's just my sense that the slow storyline won't hold their attention. This book would be thrown by the wayside in favor of something more stimulating to the senses.

Great book with an interesting story line. A bit of WWII history and a modern day coming of age. A bit deep for a young reader. Better for a teen audience! Not as comic as I expected, but still a nice read!!!

Once again, a rather sophisticated children's novel. I found it hard to put down. It has much in common with From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in that some children solve an art mystery. The holocaust connection was very well done.

Wow...where to begin? A mother and her son do estate sales for a living. A young neighbor, who happens to be an artist's son and a godchild of an art gallery owner, becomes friends with the boy and helps organize one of the houses to ready it for a sale. Simultaneously, the godfather happens to be opening an art show of art deemed degenerate by the Nazis. This show reveals some secrets to his own past. Coincidentally, the boys uncover a piece of art that unravels more of the story for the godfather that requires its owner to face some dark secrets about her husband.

There are elements of this book which I would love to applaud highly. It has deeply developed characters. It endlessly jaunts off on detailed tangents - some of which ultimately are all intertwined into an important contribution to the whole - some not. I like that. Sometimes the foreshadowing in a story is too obvious...you can feel it immediately and your mind starts racing off to tie up the ends before the author does. To me, the clues in Mysterious Edge were not showing their hand too early since many of the jaunts led to nowhere except a fuller perception of the characters. At the end of the book, I could literally see every major character fully in my mind and knew them like a friend.

The connection between the two storylines and the timing of both revelations seem very unlikely. There is no explanation, mystical or otherwise to account for the grand coincidence.

The real problem for me in this book was the unnecessary adult subject matter in a book identified as written for 10 year olds and up?!? Do our ten year olds really need to have known from a glance inside her robe that Mrs. Zender was not a natural blonde? Does a ten year old really need a lesson on dramatic performances of "*itches and boys"? I could add to the list of elements that were too mature, not just morally, in the story such as domestic violence, marriages of convenience, excessive drinking, ... that don't seem appropriate - let alone interesting - to a ten year old.

The novel was very intellectual with biographical sketches of artists and historical details of Hitler's response to "degenerate art". While other horrifying aspects of the Holocaust certainly make that issue pale in comparison, it was another aspect of the time that add to our knowledge bank...one that I've personally never heard about. Again, however, are prolific details about dead artists, from their palette to brush styles, interesting to a ten year old? Doubt it.

Overall, I am impressed with the author's obvious intellect and ability to depict well-developed characters and stories. I'm just disappointed with the insertion of completely irrelevant subject matter. Some of it was relevant - the homosexual "pink badge", for instance, was another aspect of the Holocaust that I'd never heard about. Other mature subjects, however, were just not important to the plot at all and took the novel out of the intended age range.

Having previously read Konigsburg's (outstanding) short stories in Throwing Shadows, I wasn't sure what to expect with this novel. However, by the end, I was blown away -- not just at how fascinating I found the story, but also how surprisingly poignant it was. It's a tough novel to sum up in a few sentences, but you won't be disappointed.

This book was not what I was expecting. The back of the book on CD related a "clue to the past" and a "house that holds many secrets". Of my own fault I was hoping for secret passageways or perhaps a long lost local treasure.

What I got was something entirely different with the Nazi persecution theme. Clearly in the description on this site that is stated. So, had I read that here I would not have chosen this book. Not for the fact that this type of literature does not have it's place, it's just not what I was hoping for.

There are manture themes that while my 11 yr old could handle it is just not lighthearded summer reading. He did not finish the book even though I did. Also, the style is very descriptive and that is also not my taste. I am glad this book has an audience as the writer seems very talented.