Customer Reviews

Silverlock: Including the Silverlock Companion (Nesfa's Choice, 26)

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_This is truly a book for book lovers. It starts with a middle-aged Chicagoan with a degree in Business Administration and a life that that has ceased to hold any meaning or charm for him. He boards a freighter as a passenger in order to try to put a little interest and excitement in his life. Well, he finds it. The freighter is shipwrecked after several days of running before a storm and the main character, Silverlock, finds himself cast adrift without a life boat. As he says- if he had cared to live, he would have died. As it is however, he doesn't struggle and exhaust himself- he merely surrenders himself to his fate and the currents. Fate soon finds him....

_What Silverlock finds is the Commonwealth. This is a place where all the great stories from myth, legend, and literature actually exist, somehow, side by side. This requires a suspension of belief, but given the excellent story telling that isn't too difficult. That seems to be what the Commonwealth is all about- it is the Commonwealth of story telling, or imagination.

_It is more than just a survey of great characters and stories, however. Silverlock comes across as pretty unsympathetic at the beginning, but through experience and suffering in his travels from east to west he grows immeasurably in character. Perhaps the Commonwealth is a mask for purgatory, where lost souls are given a second chance at growth and redemption. In any case it is more heaven than purgatory for the reader.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the "companion" aspect of this book. I remember when I first read it, a big part of the charm was recognising the characters and situations from my own reading (if you recognise a majority of them, then you are "well-read") Then when I reread it, time and again, I would recognise a reference or two that I had not gotten previously. Having it right there in the book where you can simply look it up seems rather common- almost like cheating.

_Save this book for special quiet times when your spirit needs a recharge. I know that I do.

Having first been recommended this book by a close friend in the early '80s, and after borrowing her copy and finding a copy for myself, I have since run through 3 entire copies of this book in paperback. In addition, I have loaned out two other copies to friends over the years, and never had those returned. However, like Ben Franklin, I never begrudge the loaning of a book to a friend and never getting it back.

Now, I have it in hardback, and hope that this one will last much longer. The addition of the Silverlock Companion just makes the overall intristic value of the novel go up by several notches. Now, after running across a litterary reference that I like, I can actually track it to the source to find yet another diamond in the rough.

Good for all ages from high school on up, I recommend this to anybody interested in literature and/or a ronp of an adventure story. Whether you recognize all, some or none of the persons, places and things in the Commonwealth, it's one of the best reads in the last century. Enjoy.

A family member introduced to me to this book several years back, and I've since snatched up every copy I've been able to get my hands on! This is a marvelous lagniappe of allusions and illusions, with nods to everyone from Homer and Beowulf to Robin Hood and Tom Jones. How many characters and places can you recognize? I stopped after thirty-five. . . perfect for the literature buff, the trivia maven, the avid reader, or anyone looking for a fun read.

This book has so much to love I recommend this to everybody that enjoys words.

The author is a wordsmith that needs to be read.

The story and songs are great and I was sad when I finished it because I did not want it to end.

This book is half Pilgrim's Progress, half Divine Comedy, half outright allegory and complete fun.

A. Clarence Shandon, the Silverlock of the title, is not a very nice person as the story opens. Shipwrecked, he is saved by Widsith Amerigin Demodocus Taliesin Golias, who is more than a bard, he is a Maker. And from the moment he meets Golias, Silverlock falls into stories, one after another. He lands on the great island of the Commonwealth, which at one level is the Commonwealth of letters, literature, stories. And on another is simply a grand romp through the great stories of our culture.

For Silverlock, who is as ignorant of literature as a fish, it's initially simply something that happens to him. He is, in Golias's kind phrase, "Not well informed." Nor are we. Whether it's hanging out with Robin Hood, wandering into the scenes of Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream, or quaffing mead with Beowulf, or even his own quests; it's initially all the same. But gradually the stories he lives and the stories he hears, and Golias's own example, transform him into a better person.

I could tell you that "Silverlock" is an allegory, that Myers is telling you that literature has the power to transform, and make a person better, and that life without literature is not worth living. But that's like saying "Hamlet" is a story about a depressed prince. Saying this book is an allegory is implying it's cod liver oil. It's not. This book is masterful as pure, sweet entertainment; the encounter with Don Quixote, Izaak Walton and a dozen others is amusing even if you have never heard of any of them.

Sure, what makes the book even more fun is trying to recognize the characters and situations Silverlock encounters. Some are easy: Captain Ahab and the Great White Whale; Circe from "Odysseus;" drifting down a river on Huck Finn's raft. Others are much harder. But that's a game to play afterwards. There's no time when you are wrapped up in the story itself. Myers' poetry is simply amazing; the "Ballad of Bowie Gizzardsbane," for example, the battle of the Alamo recast as a Norse saga, is stunningly good.

Myers' point is that literature is transforming. And this book will transform you. You will have great fun reading it - it's a ripping good story - but there's a real danger that Silverlock's encounter with Bercilak will send you to read "Gawain and the Green Night," or that the visit to the Deiphobe will send you off to the enchantments of Greek myth, or that the hysterically funny encounter with the Dean of Knights Errant will make you finally read "Don Quixote." The dangers are real in the Commonwealth, and not the least of them is the danger of being transformed by the experience of reading this book.

This edition is annotated. You can look up all those characters in the back, instead of ferreting them out yourself. On balance, the annotations are plus, but the novel would easily stand alone without them. Puzzling them out on your own is half the fun.

Understand that when Silverlock's guide, Golias, tells a story, or invents a poem in the course of this book, he is Making, he is creating new and wonderful characters that Silverlock, or you or anyone else just might encounter as they wander through the Commonwealth. I promise you that John Myers Myers is himself a Maker. "Silverlock" is Making at its best.

Upon first discovering Silverlock 22 years ago, I was struck with a sense of amazing wonderment which must have filled the discovers of the New World when they first saw a new land totally unlike any they had seen before. A masterwork of fantasy on par with Tolkien in quality, yet truly unique, being derivative of nothing else, Silverlock is a classic that works on several levels. First, it is a bang-up good adventure yarn, following the misadventures of the title character from his ship wreck in unknown waters through many close scrapes, battles, drinking bouts, and wenchings in the enchanted realm of the Commonwealth of Letters. Secondly, it is an allegory, following the development of Silverlock from a cold cynic with no respect for or knowledge of the world of literature, to an enthusiastic aspirant maker of tales. And finally, it is an incredible literary game of 'identify that reference', as every person, place, and thing in Silverlock, outside of the protagonist is lifted from the vast range of literature and myth, from Gilgamesh to Mark Twain.

These literary references and the way Silverlock interacts with them create the unique magic of this book. Typical of the scenes that you will find here is Silverlock emerging from the forest where the night before he has been the guest of Robin Hood and his merry band, stopping at a tavern and lunching with the Mad Hatter and his party, and pushing on for an evening feast at Heorot Hall, where the revelers are celebrating the death of Grendel by recounting the tale of the Alamo in Norse verse. All this and more in but one chapter.

Nesfa Press' new edition of Silverlock has the added advantage of including The Silverlock Companion, which among other things includes an alphabetical listing of all the literary allusions, and a bibliography of books containing the poems, stories, and legends to which allusion is made in Silverlock.

Silverlock is a book you will come back to many times. I just finished my third reading of it, which certainly will not be my last. This is a book to keep, treasure, and share. Buy two copies, one for you, and one to lend and share the magic

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