Customer Reviews

LAND OF UNREASON

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

 

 

While the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series began by reprinting classic authors of the genre -- the founders of fantasy, more or less -- editor Lin Carter also wanted to reprint some more recent examples. And one of the most enjoyable was this collaboration between L. Sprague DeCamp & Fletcher Pratt, which successfully walks the very difficult line between humor & serious adventure.

The story: Fred Barber, an American GI stationed in England during WWII, substitutes whiskey for the milk his landlady leaves out for the fairy-folk at night. Due to wartime rationing, he simply misses having a nice glass of milk, and sees no harm in his slight alteration of what's obviously a quaint but ridiculous local superstition ...

Until a band of totally drunken fairy-folk abducts him into their world.

What follows is a wonderful tale, its details informed by the considerable historical & literary backgrounds of the two authors. Faerie is plagued by strange "shapings," so that the very nature of its reality is shifting constantly; some unknown evil is the cause of this affliction. Since Fred is human & thus able to handle cold iron, which is death to fairy-folk, he's asked to be the emissary of the Faerie court.

And so Fred sets forth on an episodic series of adventures that bring countless surprises, strange friends & foes, hilarious encounters ... but all the while, a more serious tone begins to shade the narrative. Even the satiric scenes begin to carry more weight as the story progresses, leading to a quite unexpected & impressive finale.

There really aren't many fantasy novels like this one. Contemporary humorous fantasy seems a little too broad & slapstick in comparison; and much of contemporary serious fantasy is too dense & self-important. This slim volume balances everything perfectly, and provides more wonder than most 800-page fantasies cluttering the shelves today. For the well-read, the casual touches from classic literature & myth throughout the story will be an extra pleasure!

As always, series editor Lin Carter provides a brief but informative introduction, one that conveys his personal love of this novel; and the cover art is bright, vivid, and far removed from the drab waxworks style so common today. If you love quality fantasy, you really shouldn't miss this one -- a recommended treat!

Fred Barber is an American diplomat posted to the U.S. embassy in Spain at the beginning of World War 2. Although the U.S. is still a neutral country Barber is wounded in an explosion and sent to the British countryside to recuperate. From his temporary billet in Yorkshire, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gurton, Barber can hear the German bombs shattering the near-by city of Leeds. At nighttime the sky glows red in the distance where the city burns. Unable to relax or sleep easily Barber uses sleeping pills to nurse himself into a calmer state. Then on St John's Eve Barber finds himself in the house alone, except for the Gurton's baby who sleeps in his room peacefully. Determined not to resort to pills again Barber reaches instead for the scotch bottle. Wandering around the house Barber comes upon a saucer of milk, which Mrs. Gurton has left on the front doorstep. Intrigued Barber remembers that he has read in The Golden Bough that superstitious people believe that on certain nights of the year a tribute of milk should be left out for the fairies. Not to do so will result in the child of the household being stolen away and a changeling left in its place. In a slightly tipsy state Barber is amused by his find. He decides to drink the milk and leave his scotch in its place. The milk has a soporific effect and Barber happily goes to bed. In the middle of the night Barber thinks he dreams of a strange creature, with a huge smile, entering his room. Later in the night Barber awakes and finds himself out of doors in a very strange land surrounded by a crowd of very strange beings. Much to his surprise Barber finds that he has been transported to Fairyland, to the court of King Oberon and Queen Titania. Just how did he get here, Barber wonders, and how is he going to get back to Yorkshire?

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung taught that we should play more attention to dreams, myths, folktales and stories of the extraordinary. These fantastic narrations are often dismissed as 'mere fancy', of no value except to entertain children and the weak-minded. But according to Jung the fantastic appeals to the unconscious. It provides an outlet for the less logical, more intuitive, side of ourselves. The unconscious is often neglected and suppressed in our ultra-logical, materialist, conscious world. If ignored for too long our unconscious will break out in rebellion, resulting in psychological disturbance. So if you find the stress of modern life too much De Camp and Pratt's book may be just what the doctor ordered. The authors have drawn heavily on folklore to create a strange, dream-like world that is entertaining, intriguing and sure to make you smile. The book is called <The Land of Unreason> and this is indeed a place where worker-day logic does not hold. The unconscious can find plenty of events here that don't obey conscious reason, but none-the-less have an intuitive rightness, a hidden order of their own. This is certainly not a book for children. The hero is an adult who has a cynical, tempestuous girlfriend back in Spain. King Oberon dallies with a beautiful, winged sprite, his lover, who he hides from his wife. The pleasures and pains of adult life are clearly depicted. This is a book to delight the adult unconscious mind.

The plot of the novel moves along very nicely and is never dull. We meet a great array of characters most of who are disconcerting in their unreasonableness. As Barber travels through Fairyland he looses some of his conscious up-tightness and enters into the spirit of the intuitive unconscious. This is certainly not a book of Nobel Prize winning themes, inspiring symbolism or astounding structure, but it is very successful in what it sets out to do.

Of course most books have their source in earlier works and this tale is clearly inspired in part by Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby) (1863). De Camp and Pratt clearly declare their indebtedness to these earlier books in the text of their own work.

Fred Barber is an American diplomat posted to the U.S. embassy in Spain at the beginning of World War 2. Although the U.S. is still a neutral country Barber is wounded in an explosion and sent to the British countryside to recuperate. From his temporary billet in Yorkshire, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gurton, Barber can hear the German bombs shattering the near-by city of Leeds. At nighttime the sky glows red in the distance where the city burns. Unable to relax or sleep easily Barber uses sleeping pills to nurse himself into a calmer state. Then on St John's Eve Barber finds himself in the house alone, except for the Gurton's baby who sleeps in his room peacefully. Determined not to resort to pills again Barber reaches instead for the scotch bottle. Wandering around the house Barber comes upon a saucer of milk, which Mrs. Gurton has left on the front doorstep. Intrigued Barber remembers that he has read in The Golden Bough that superstitious people believe that on certain nights of the year a tribute of milk should be left out for the fairies. Not to do so will result in the child of the household being stolen away and a changeling left in its place. In a slightly tipsy state Barber is amused by his find. He decides to drink the milk and leave his scotch in its place. The milk has a soporific effect and Barber happily goes to bed. In the middle of the night Barber thinks he dreams of a strange creature, with a huge smile, entering his room. Later in the night Barber awakes and finds himself out of doors in a very strange land surrounded by a crowd of very strange beings. Much to his surprise Barber finds that he has been transported to Fairyland, to the court of King Oberon and Queen Titania. Just how did he get here, Barber wonders, and how is he going to get back to Yorkshire?

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung taught that we should play more attention to dreams, myths, folktales and stories of the extraordinary. These fantastic narrations are often dismissed as 'mere fancy', of no value except to entertain children and the weak-minded. But according to Jung the fantastic appeals to the unconscious. It provides an outlet for the less logical, more intuitive, side of ourselves. The unconscious is often neglected and suppressed in our ultra-logical, materialist, conscious world. If ignored for too long our unconscious will break out in rebellion, resulting in psychological disturbance. So if you find the stress of modern life too much De Camp and Pratt's book may be just what the doctor ordered. The authors have drawn heavily on folklore to create a strange, dream-like world that is entertaining, intriguing and sure to make you smile. The book is called <The Land of Unreason> and this is indeed a place where worker-day logic does not hold. The unconscious can find plenty of events here that don't obey conscious reason, but none-the-less have an intuitive rightness, a hidden order of their own. This is certainly not a book for children. The hero is an adult who has a cynical, tempestuous girlfriend back in Spain. King Oberon dallies with a beautiful, winged sprite, his lover, who he hides from his wife. The pleasures and pains of adult life are clearly depicted. This is a book to delight the adult unconscious mind.

The plot of the novel moves along very nicely and is never dull. We meet a great array of characters most of who are disconcerting in their unreasonableness. As Barber travels through Fairyland he looses some of his conscious up-tightness and enters into the spirit of the intuitive unconscious. This is certainly not a book of Nobel Prize winning themes, inspiring symbolism or astounding structure, but it is very successful in what it sets out to do.

Of course most books have their source in earlier works and this tale is clearly inspired in part by Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby) (1863). De Camp and Pratt clearly declare their indebtedness to these earlier books in the text of their own work.

Fred Barber is an American diplomat posted to the U.S. embassy in Spain at the beginning of World War 2. Although the U.S. is still a neutral country Barber is wounded in an explosion and sent to the British countryside to recuperate. From his temporary billet in Yorkshire, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gurton, Barber can hear the German bombs shattering the near-by city of Leeds. At nighttime the sky glows red in the distance where the city burns. Unable to relax or sleep easily Barber uses sleeping pills to nurse himself into a calmer state. Then on St John's Eve Barber finds himself in the house alone, except for the Gurton's baby who sleeps in his room peacefully. Determined not to resort to pills again Barber reaches instead for the scotch bottle. Wandering around the house Barber comes upon a saucer of milk, which Mrs. Gurton has left on the front doorstep. Intrigued Barber remembers that he has read in The Golden Bough that superstitious people believe that on certain nights of the year a tribute of milk should be left out for the fairies. Not to do so will result in the child of the household being stolen away and a changeling left in its place. In a slightly tipsy state Barber is amused by his find. He decides to drink the milk and leave his scotch in its place. The milk has a soporific effect and Barber happily goes to bed. In the middle of the night Barber thinks he dreams of a strange creature, with a huge smile, entering his room. Later in the night Barber awakes and finds himself out of doors in a very strange land surrounded by a crowd of very strange beings. Much to his surprise Barber finds that he has been transported to Fairyland, to the court of King Oberon and Queen Titania. Just how did he get here, Barber wonders, and how is he going to get back to Yorkshire?

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung taught that we should play more attention to dreams, myths, folktales and stories of the extraordinary. These fantastic narrations are often dismissed as 'mere fancy', of no value except to entertain children and the weak-minded. But according to Jung the fantastic appeals to the unconscious. It provides an outlet for the less logical, more intuitive, side of ourselves. The unconscious is often neglected and suppressed in our ultra-logical, materialist, conscious world. If ignored for too long our unconscious will break out in rebellion, resulting in psychological disturbance. So if you find the stress of modern life too much De Camp and Pratt's book may be just what the doctor ordered. The authors have drawn heavily on folklore to create a strange, dream-like world that is entertaining, intriguing and sure to make you smile. The book is called <The Land of Unreason> and this is indeed a place where worker-day logic does not hold. The unconscious can find plenty of events here that don't obey conscious reason, but none-the-less have an intuitive rightness, a hidden order of their own. This is certainly not a book for children. The hero is an adult who has a cynical, tempestuous girlfriend back in Spain. King Oberon dallies with a beautiful, winged sprite, his lover, who he hides from his wife. The pleasures and pains of adult life are clearly depicted. This is a book to delight the adult unconscious mind.

The plot of the novel moves along very nicely and is never dull. We meet a great array of characters most of who are disconcerting in their unreasonableness. As Barber travels through Fairyland he looses some of his conscious up-tightness and enters into the spirit of the intuitive unconscious. This is certainly not a book of Nobel Prize winning themes, inspiring symbolism or astounding structure, but it is very successful in what it sets out to do.

Of course most books have their source in earlier works and this tale is clearly inspired in part by Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby) (1863). De Camp and Pratt clearly declare their indebtedness to these earlier books in the text of their own work.