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Not available in print in Canada till September, but I was able to buy it on Kindle, and have done so -- really looking forward to this! Germaine On 2018-04-24 11:19 AM, David Miller wrote: > Members of the list will no doubt be please to hear that our long-time > listmaster, one Zurcher by name, has had a fantasy novel, /Twelve > Nights/, published by Penguin. > > It isn't out yet in the States, but you can order a copy from Amazon > UK. I did. It arrived last week and I read it nonstop over the > weekend. Here is my one-paragraph review: > > On pages 286-7 of /Twelve Nights/,//Andrew Zurcher’s > aesthetico-metaphysical didactic postmodern fantasy novel for > children, an almost unthinkably powerful adult male character says to > the progatonist, nine-year-old Katharine Worth-More: > > “Plotters work with boards, Kay.… The boards are of a certain size. We > move the stones around the boards, watching the patterns. Our hands > think through the narratives of things as they guide and are guided by > the stones. But always the stones stay on the board and the narratives > are, as we say, conserved. If stones could fall off the board or come > on to the board from nowhere, the plotting could not function. For > that reason, there is nothing a plotter fears more than the edge of > the board; nothing a plotter guards more carefully than the security > of the stones. Causes must generate effects, and effects derive from > causes; a cause without an effect or an effect without a cause would > break the principle of conservation, and would undermine the plot. > > “The greatest stories flirt with the edge, and become great exactly > because of this flirtation. They skirt it, needle it, always toying > with the loss of a cause or with the spontaneous effect; but the art > of the greatest storytellers lies in the surprise of conservation, in > the delight of an expectation dashed, only to be fulfilled. It may be > a simple rule, but it is a rule.” > > Not many nine-year olds will be able to follow this kind of > metafictional labyrinth, but those who do will burn through the book > like a lit fuse, for all the long discursive and descriptive passages > that ease the pace. So will a great many high school and college > students, not to mention their teachers. As a literary event, Italo > Calvino meets Spenser meets Plato meets Aristotle, C.S. Lewis, and > narrative theory is too cool to miss. It is an adventure story > suspended for 436 beautifully written pages on the edge of the board. > > > > -- > David Lee Miller > University of South Carolina > Columbia, SC 29208 > (803) 777-4256 > FAX 777-9064 > [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > Center for Digital Humanities <http://www.cdh.sc.edu/> > Faculty Web Page <http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/people/pages/miller.html> > -- *********************************************************************** Germaine Warkentin // English (Emeritus), University of Toronto [log in to unmask] http://www.individual.utoronto.ca/germainew/ "There has never been a great age of science and technology without a corresponding flourishing of the arts and humanities." -- Cathy N. Davidson ***********************************************************************