Two Cornelia Funkes
What happened to those two Cornelia Funkes I talked about?
I started with Inkheart, which was billed as the latest and greatest - at any rate until her new one which is only just coming out in hardback - and is 'soon to be a major motion picture'. It's the story of a girl and her bookbinder-father, who has the gift of making the characters in books come alive in the real world, when he reads aloud. At the same time, someone or something from the real world is exchanged back into the book. A particularly nasty villain has got out, and the bookbinder's wife lost in the book. The story tells of how they get this sorted.
It's an intriguing storyline, but something about the execution doesn't quite do it for me. There isn't much development in the plot, it just lurches from one extreme jeopardy to the next. Perhaps it's something to do with being the first of a trilogy. I should have learned by now, not to touch anything that calls itself that, with a barge-pole.
Then tried The Thief Lord, a story of orphan children in Venice, living by their wits and trying to avoid the clutches of unpleasant aunts and uncles. Pretty standard kids' lit fare, that storyline, but the setting, the humour, and above all lots more development of plot and character, make it a heaps better read.
Kind of a cross between Swallows and Amazons, and Death in Venice. Well no, that's not a good analogy. Swallows and Amazons, and something else set in Venice. Any suggestions, anyone?
I started with Inkheart, which was billed as the latest and greatest - at any rate until her new one which is only just coming out in hardback - and is 'soon to be a major motion picture'. It's the story of a girl and her bookbinder-father, who has the gift of making the characters in books come alive in the real world, when he reads aloud. At the same time, someone or something from the real world is exchanged back into the book. A particularly nasty villain has got out, and the bookbinder's wife lost in the book. The story tells of how they get this sorted.
It's an intriguing storyline, but something about the execution doesn't quite do it for me. There isn't much development in the plot, it just lurches from one extreme jeopardy to the next. Perhaps it's something to do with being the first of a trilogy. I should have learned by now, not to touch anything that calls itself that, with a barge-pole.
Then tried The Thief Lord, a story of orphan children in Venice, living by their wits and trying to avoid the clutches of unpleasant aunts and uncles. Pretty standard kids' lit fare, that storyline, but the setting, the humour, and above all lots more development of plot and character, make it a heaps better read.
Kind of a cross between Swallows and Amazons, and Death in Venice. Well no, that's not a good analogy. Swallows and Amazons, and something else set in Venice. Any suggestions, anyone?
posted by Tony at 7/29/2004 03:50:00 pm
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