The City of Dreaming Books
January 6th, 2008by Walter Moers
translated by John Littlebrown
ISBN: 9781585678990
This book was actually translated twice (Moers translated it from Zamonian) though the tale involves such clever wordplay, it is hard to believe it is translated at all. He also drew illustrations for it, which is good, because things like Booklings, Bookhunters, and Animatomes deserve to be seen and not entirely imagined. Not that they are imagined at all; they are, of course, quite real. You can believe Optimus Yarnspinner.
And why shouldn’t you? He’s a dinosaur from a place you never heard of, following a tradition of authorship stretching back generations, off on a mission to a dangerous and book-obsessed city. Of course you can believe him. So he starts off a bit naive. He makes a few mistakes. Reads at least one book he shouldn’t have. Still, his adventures are quite compelling.
The fun thing about this book is that Moers really does reward book lovers. Imagine a city devoted to literature, a people raised to be authors, a place where books are living things and stories have phenomenal power. Now throw in some alchemy, enormous greed, careful scheming, monsters, and some gruesome violence. Put most of it underground, imagine it lit by pulsing jellyfish lamps or ancient candles, and surround everything with books. How can you not want to go there?
If this sounds the least bit resistable to you, well, fine… but you’ll be missing out. Yarnspinner advises potential readers best:
This book tells of a place where reading is still a genuine adventure, and by adventure I mean the old-fashioned definition of the word that appears in the Zamonian Dictionary: ‘A daring enterprise undertaken in a spirit of curiosity or temerity, it is potentially life-threatening, harbours unforeseeable dangers and sometimes proves fatal.‘
Highly recommended.
