Customer Reviews

Trader

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

 

 

Max, you've gone too far this time! Though he doesn't know why, one day Max Trader wakes up and realizes that he's been transported into the body of a homeless derelict, Johnny Devlin, who's now all showered and shaved and living in Max's very nice lifestyle. The two men are at a standstill, and Max realizes how tough it is to be homeless and yet, we all of us can do something to change our life, even if our "trading partner" (Johnny) isn't quite ready to give us back our own life yet. TRADER shines with all of Charles De Lint's trademark magic and color. His town is like one designed by Thomas Kinkade, the "painter of light," if Kinkade had been a Canadian citizen; you will feel you're at home right away, even if your own life has been very different than that of the perplexed, bewitched characters of Ontario.

Do you remember THE IVORY AND THE HORN? In that book Coyote descsibres the mystic little flute player, the trickster, and he says, "He's a fertility symbol, now, very mythopoetic and all, but it wasn't always that way. Used to be a trader, a travelling merchant, hup-two-three. That hunched back was actually his pack of trading goods, the flute his way of approaching a settlement, tootle-toot-toot, it's only me, no danger, except if you were some nubile young thing." I think perhaps for De Lint the concept of the "trader" was percolating in his mind lo, these many years, and only now has he expanded it into novel length. He has drunk deep from the wells of Northrop Frye and Lord Dunsany and he has fermented his own bubbly brew of identity and inspiration.

If you are looking for a place of nature inside the city, come to the world of TRADER and lie back and see the stars through the neon.

Although I can understand the other reviewers' points of view, I have to disagree. I loved this book. This is the first book I have ever read by Charles de Lint, but I thought it was entertaining and a really good read. I would definitely give it a try.

I like De Lint's work. It's always fresh and fun. The ideas are well handled and the characters (usually just a couple of them) are well honed. Like so many of his other books, this one is set in the semi-Faeriefied "urban folklore" style he's known for. This book is sometimes tedious, but there's so little like it that you'll enjoy yourself (especially if you enjoyed any of his past works).

Charles De Lint has become one of my favorite authors, although I only discovered him a year or so ago. Trader drew me in and made me care about the characters, and it also gave me something to think about. Revisiting Newford, and meeting more more of its inhabitants (while styaing in touch with old friends) makes reading De Lint's stories more like receiving a wonderful, long letter from a friend.

This was my first De Lint novel - I think that I am going to try another based on such high praise from others, perhaps this was just an unlucky pick. I did like the character Max Trader and felt there was so much potential for this tale, alas unrealized. Bones, Buddy and maybe Nia, okay. The other characters were uninteresting, whiney, undeveloped and just plain boring - way too much detail about stuff I didn't want to know.

You'll either love or hate Charles de Lint. He never attempts to do anything other than entertain, however somehow I always come away from his books feeling as if I've accidentally learned something he is a storyteller through & through, not actually a writer, although he's had to stoop to writing because he just can't make a living traveling about the world and telling stories. In any even, this here story is so well crafted, with so much emotion packed into the characters, that I

found myself dreading the ending... when I got within the last twenty pages, I started reading as slowly as possible. I wanted the story to go on... going to reread it.

Max Trader wakes up to find his life gone. He's in a new body. Johnny Devlin's body. And now he's got all Devlin's problems and baggage. Max wants his life back. But Johnny likes the arrangement -- he's got it all now.

The story is about what you'd expect of a body swapping fantasy tale. But, this is Newford. No one is quite what they seem. Where better to play with many of the question that we deal with in our daily lives. What makes me ... well, me? Could I prove I was me if I was in another body? Think of your friends. Okay, how well do they really know you. How many of them do you really share your innermost thoughts and feelings with?

Max Trader had a great life. He was famous for the guitars and instruments he made but no one knew him. He didn't touch anyones life except for a young girl who needed someone to talk to and found that Max didn't mind listening.

This is a story that will stay with me for a long time. It's given me a lot to think about -- but, then deLint's books usually do give me a lot to think about.

I almost put this book down three times in the first 100 pages. It was only the appearance of "Bones" and the Coyote subthread that finally kept my attention. Well, that and the fact that I've enjoyed others from De Lint's library of stories. His strength lies in his inherent story telling abilities. His weakness is wallowing in excess inner angst. Ultimately, I liked this story, but it did not merit four hundred plus pages. It could have been told in half those.

Wonderful book. I came to the semi-painful realization that de Lint's Newford books are the only ones that I really like. Memory and Dream didn't do a lot for me. I LOVED Dreams Underfoot. And then Trader. Near as I can figure, in the Newford chronology of things, Trader HAS to come between Dreams Underfoot and The Ivory And The Horn.

I really, really liked it. The back cover describes it as "an adult coming of age story," and I would agree. The characters are vivid, funny, realistic...very passionate as well, which is very important for me.

While Someplace to Be Flying is definately my favorite de Lint book, Trader is really up there, too.

This is great book about a good person trying to find himself. He learns that who he is can not really be defined in the material world but rather in the spiritual world. It is a story which tells us that a person's current circumstances do not define the person. That who we are is contained within ourselves. That if one is spiritually sound then they will rise to meet all the challeges in life.