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Imagine that, at the age of twelve, you find yourself alone -- despite being decked out in full Boy Scout regalia -- in the woods, unable to remember where you are or how you got there. Further complicating the situation, you meet talking animals, several of whom make clear their cheerful willingness to fight at a moment's notice, and, most terrifying of all, you find that there are grownups in the woods -- grownups who know who you are and who attack you with swords! Forced to band together with the animals to fend off the grownups, known as Blue Cutters, you set off on a quest to discover where -- and indeed who -- you are.
In broad strokes, that is the situation of Max the Wolf, the boy at the heart of Bill Willingham's new young adult novel, Down the Mysterly River -- and a splendid novel it is. Max is instantly recognizable as a hero in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown, Jupiter Jones, Tom Swift, or the Hardy Brothers -- that is to say, he's a bright kid who promulgates rules of detection and has apparently used them to solve a whole series of crimes. His companions are Branderbock, a ferocious warrior badger; Walden, a dopey but well-meaning bear; and McTavish, an unstoppable killing machine (which is to say, an overgrown, scarred barn cat).
The archetypal aspect of these characters, instantly recognizable from children's literature (Narnia, the Hundred Acre Wood, etc.), probably shouldn't be surprising, since Willingham's bestselling comic book series, Fables, takes characters from fairytales around the world, lends them self-awareness, and subjects them to life in New York City. It makes perfect sense, then, that this novel takes familiar types and bends them to highly original ends.
The four characters' quest is a version of The Wizard of Oz, as, after consulting an oracle, they seek out a "wizard" who will be able to give them the information they seek. In their quest to find the wizard, they meet up with a mysterious, powerful Eggman, fight a dragon, and endure many other adventures. Most particularly, they are anxious to avoid the Blue Cutters, whose swords have the ability to radically alter not just the physical form, but the very identity, of anyone they encounter:
These words are spoken by Professor Padraic Antipedes Hildemark, aka the Eggman, and clarify one of the main themes of the book: old stories are best left alone, especially by anyone who longs "to control all of it, not individually, but through huge committees, where no single vision is allowed to dominate. Like insects." (Charles Dickens has a splendid rant on just this theme in "Frauds on the Fairies" (1853), which denounces the practice of updating children's literature to make it more palatable to modern morals.)
It's hard to comment directly on the mystery without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that readers who follow Max's "five most important rules of detection" should have matters well in hand. The mystery of Max's situation provides readers a chance to think about creativity, the imagination, and personal change, all while following along with a highly entertaining romp through children's literature.
While postmodernism writ small has been a feature of children's books at least since The Monster at the End of This Book, Max's frustration reads like a preteen version of the game of questions from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Hamlet, and Stoppard tries to imagine what their lives must be like. During the game of questions, Guildenstern (played by Tim Roth) grows increasingly agitated that neither he nor Rosencrantz (played by Gary Oldham) seem capable of remembering even the minutest details of their daily lives away from the Danish court. If Max is never quite as desperate as Guildenstern, he's clearly troubled by the mystery that surrounds his adventure, as none of the explanations he can imagine are terribly appealing -- least of all the one presented at the end of the first chapter: "'I think we're in the afterlife, young fire caller,' the badger said in a voice gone quiet and sober. 'My best guess is that you and me are stone-cold dead.'" Despite the playful tone, the stakes are very high for this band of four, as even the probably-dead wish to avoid the scourge of the Blue Cutters.
One minor point: Down the Mysterly River is new -- out this month from Tor -- but it was also published about ten years ago by Clockwork Storybook, a writing group in Austin. With that edition vanishingly hard to obtain, and after the success of Fables, Willingham sold a "highly re-written" version to Tor.
Down the Mysterly River is a charming, thoughtful book, one that will reward attentive readers, while still delighting kids who want to barrel through to the end. Some of the fight scenes are quite violent -- as one would imagine with animals fighting one another and against men with swords, so the book might not be right for very young readers. On balance, though, Willingham has written a book that many readers, young and old, will be able to enjoy.
