The City of Dreaming Books / Walter Moers. The Overlook Press, 2008 (trade paperback 978-1-59020-111-4 / hardcover 1-58567-899-6 / ebook 978-1-59020-368-2). 464 pages.

There’s something about an obligation, even a self-imposed one, that can slow motivation to a crawl. For me, at least. Quite some time ago, my friend Phillip Sawyer recommended to me the works of Walter Moers, a German author of humorous fantasy, in the hope I might respond to them with one of my occasional exhaustive reviews. I investigated, and they did indeed appear enticing, to one of my literary bent, particularly Phil’s prime recommendation, The City of Dreaming Books. I bought it. I started reading. I lost it. Found it again. Continued reading, and eventually finished. And... procrastinated, as I often do in the face of a big task.

There’s so much in it. Where would I even begin? Perhaps with the basics, and go on from there. Okay, then. You can’t get much more basic than this: I loved this book. Why? Well, it’s funny, of course. I did note Moers is a humorous author, right? And sly. And exciting. And erudite. And inventive. And even horrifying.

Funny; Moers is an excellent man for a good pun (or a bad one, for that matter), and while possessed of the misfortune (for an English reader) to be writing in German, he is well served by his translator (John Brownjohn, which sounds suspiciously pseudonymous to me, but who knows?), who has the gift of magically transforming Moers’s little German jests into jests that work in English. Think of Brownjohn as Moers’ own Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. (If you know those names, you know what I mean. If you don’t, I pity you. Go out and read some Asterix immediately!)

And sly? Well, some of those puns are likely to slip right past you, until a chapter or three onward something tickles your memory, you have a V8 moment, and it hits you like a ton of all the why-didn’t-I-see-thats you’ve ever had. Many are in the form of authors you’ve never heard of—or have you?—whose name are dropped by the bushel-load throughout the text. Some are anagrams, some are rhymes, some are simply suggestive, but a surprising number resolve themselves into more familiar names with a little effort, or the patient free-association of the subconscious. And those that don’t ... well, probably do as well, or would, if you were educated enough to recognize them. Moers is obviously better educated than the majority of humanity, and apparently the present representative as well, loathe though I am to admit it.

Exciting? Ha! You will believe that Our Hero, Optimus Yarnspinner (Hildegunst von Mythenmetz, if you prefer the German), a naive, bumbling, ridiculous and over-educated dragon, can stumble into peril from which there is no possible escape. Moreover, you will despair, and care. Only the fact that the book is a first person narrative and the protagonist has to have lived to tell the tale keeps you going.

And yet it starts out so simply, as the quest of our reptilian protagonist to the literary capital of the world, hoping to discover the author of a marvelous scrap of writing bequeathed him by his late uncle (who wasn’t its author, by the way, just in case you’re wondering). What he finds instead is a place of wonder threatened by fiendish monopolistic interests and a conspiracy so enormous it threatens All That Is. Or at least everything worth reading. Enmeshed in the machinations of an unknown enemy (whose identity the reader will tumble to well in advance, Yarnspinner finds himself marooned in the labyrinthine depths of the undercity, potential prey to innumerable threats, where any wrong move might be his last. Possessed of the luck that so often favors fools, he somehow survives one wrong move after another as he wends his way deeper and deeper into trouble...

Could it be that Someone Down There Likes Him? But who? His own hero and idol, the vanished Vulphead Colophonius Regenschein? Or the Shadow King, mysterious monarch of the undercity, who, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, leaves no survivors? Or those strange, spooky little gnomes who are feared by all? Whatever the truth, Our Hero perseveres through Perils enough to push Pauline into retirement, all the while learning—absorbing the rudiments of survival, the forgotten histories of literary eons, and the secrets of literary greatness. Oh, and he does, incidentally, ultimately accomplish his quest. Indeed, he accomplishes a great deal more than he bargained for.

Erudite? I mentioned the author puns, right? There are others—also, in the main, literary puns, often quite fiendish. A few are obvious, others you know are there, others still lurk chuckling in ambush; you’re their prey, and you never even know they’re stalking you until—”Wow! I could’ve had a V8!” There are spoofs of literary schools you’ve likely never heard of, send-ups of scholarly ways of misthinking you were probably tortured with in college, vicious yet sympathetic metaphors for the fates of hack writers, wry acknowledgements of the vagaries of literary taste, cautionary tales of the hazards of trusting to patronage—the whole book is one, in some ways... I could go on and on. And then there’s the Orm, the almost indescribable ideal of absolute genius to which so many aspire and which so few attain, but we know it when we see it, and Moers, as it happens, has a gift for describing the indescribable, and making us feel it as he so plainly feels it.

Inventive? Moers’s novels all take place on the imaginary lost continent of Zamonia, of which fabled Atlantis was only a part, teeming with nations, societies, and wonders unsuspected in our humdrum world. (Except by Moers, of course). Pretty much all are non-human. Here we are primarily concerned with two of its locales; Lindworm Castle, from which our hero hails, and Bookholm, city of books, by books and for books, and perhaps only incidentally for readers.

Our author draws on mythology, legend, or mundane zoology for the many inhabitants of Zamonia, the weirdest of which all seem drawn to Bookholm. Though not all. Another book has as protagonist a “chromabear”—like our bears, only different colored, blue in this instance. (Not, you can thank the gods, anything like Care Bears.) But we don’t encounter any chromabears in City. For many species, the only source is Moers’s own pure brain. Lindworms, dinosaur-like dragons from whose ranks the continent’s greatest writers tend to be drawn. Booklings, one-eyes denizens of the deeps who take the names of famous authors. Shark Grubs. Murkholmers. Ugglians. Bookhunters—not a species, but a profession—vicious mercenaries who descend into those same depths to recover rare tomes. Harpyrs. Homuncolossus. (There’s only one. You’ve heard of homunculi, right? This is bigger. Lots bigger.)

Moers’s invention is not confined to places and people. There are more imaginary books here than you can shake a forest at, some quaint, some interesting, some dangerous. In many of the latter, the danger consists of the content. Others are poisonous. Others still might actually attack you. The Bloody Book Our Hero ultimately plucks from the flames of the climactic city-wide conflagration is but one of whole libraries of Zamonian Necronomicons.

There is a whole imaginary history, or histories, with much more suggested than Moers could ever actually tell. (I think. You never know with him.) Layers and layers of it. Geologic layers, even. Fossil books are not unknown in the lowest recesses of Bookholm. Moers has an amusing, ironic way of revealing the incredible. Time and time again a character who wants to know something is fobbed off with the assurance that he would never believe it. And, on learning that something, doesn’t—until forced to by his own experiences. And when that character himself encounters unsuspected wonders, and is asked about them, those who questioned his ability to believe are unable to believe him.

Horrifying... You know the movies; a character is so obviously bumbling towards something mind- and life-threatening, perhaps even led there by someone in whom he places absolute trust. You know the trust is misplaced, you apprehend the outline of the fate for which he is intended, and yet you can do nothing—you’re carried onward even as the poor fool you’re rooting for is, the difference being you know everything is about to come crashing down. Oh yes, that’s there too. Quite a lot of that, as it happens...

There are bad guys. Lots of bad guys. And a few good ones. And some who manage to redeem themselves, and many who don’t. You should trust no one, except the handful who prove trustworthy. Those you should trust, if you can only figure out who they are. (Mistakes are made.) There are monsters beyond your worst imaginings. Heart-breaking betrayals. Miserable, tragic deaths of some characters who deserve to live, and survivals of some characters who really deserve to die. Some deaths well-deserved and long-coming. Pitfalls. Death traps. Miscellaneous dooms. Concerts played on trombophone, whose subliminals can madden one into book-buying rampages. (A merchandiser’s wet dream.) Evil experiments. Things Zamonia Was Not Meant To Know. Wills written on grains of rice. Myths and legends unique to Zamonia. (We are treated to some of them. We want more.) There is an alphabet of the stars. There are Zamonian numerals, with a base-8 system. Our hero has to find an address given in them at one point. Worse, the book’s chapters are enumerated in them. Good luck keeping track.

Moers is very plainly a man who knows much, and has a gift for cramming a considerable amount of it into one piece of writing, and, miraculously, for doing so without said piece feeling overstuffed. Moers has the Orm, most definitely. And you just know any other book of his you might happen to pick up is going to be even better than what you’ve already read, no matter which you have already read...

Or not. The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, sequel of The City of Dreaming Books is reputedly ... not so good. Critically panned, and not, evidently, just by the jealous or envious, as might be the case in Zamonia. It is said to reproduce the plot of the work under consideration here in cookie-cutter fashion, subjecting our protagonist, who really ought to know better by this time, to many of the same dangers, and it’s not even as nicely tied up as this book is, evidently ending with a cliff-hanger from which we may never see him extricated—yes, it seems the memoirs of Optimus Yarnspinner are intended to constitute a trilogy—but because the sequel did so badly, we might never get the concluding volume. In English, anyway. Which, sadly, may be no bad thing. I hate to say it, but while I’ll eagerly pick up any other Moers book I happen on, I’m afraid to even touch Labyrinth. (Since I wrote this, Phillip has informed me that its ill-sayers are wrong, and it’s actually quite good. So maybe I will make the venture after all.)

Well, not even Shakespeare was always at the top of his game. But even so, Moers is an author that can be pedestaled right up there with Terry Pratchett or Tom Holt as a humorist and keen observer of the human (or nonhuman, as the case may be) condition. Different, but equally valid. And there’s still plenty of good stuff by him out there, I hear. The 13˝ Lives of Captain Bluebear. A Wild Ride Through the Night. Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures. And The Alchemaster’s Apprentice. Books to look forward to, and best of all, available right now.

So, my apologies about the downer. Should I return again to the miraculous City, now? Perhaps not. (Moers apparently shouldn’t have, after all.) And what more can I say, anyway? To do it true justice would take a review as long as the book itself, which is ... reasonably long. 456 pages, in the edition I happen to own. I despair of presenting it as it deserves, as might any hack who realizes he may never achieve the Orm. The best thing I can say at this point is, “Get thee forth and seek this book! You won’t be sorry!” Sorry it took me so long. And if you need further encouragement, there’s this fabulous trombophone concert you really ought to attend. I can get you tickets...

—Brian.