Novelty's DOR Review - Chapter 23

[Novelty]

I hate playing catch-up. In Lewis Carroll's (or Professor Charles Dodgson, or whatever the allerged child-molester's name is/was) Through the Looking-glass, the not-so well-known sequel to Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen tells Alice that one must run as fast as she can just to stay in one spot and to get anywhere else, they must run twice as fast, or something like that*. If that was written in Victorian England, I wonder what Mr. Carroll/Professor Dodgson will write in this day and age.

 

But I digress, this isn't a treatise about the philosophy about running around in life nor a slapdown of poor Charles Dodgson. Why did I waste a whole paragraph and most of this one on something not related to the subject matter? It's call filling up space (although weirdly, the American term "fillibuster" comes to mind) because really I have nothing much to write about this chapter other than the usual.

 

Let's start in the middle then:

 

I liked Davey's interaction with Jenny in this chapter. Jenny has been in Davey's shadow for too long now and in DOR, she's been characterised by a one-pony schtick. It's good to find out that there's some depth to her character after all. Also, I find her attitude very believable for a person her age, and surprisingly, her dialogue is different enough from Davey's to make her stand out.

 

The first time that Pastor Jones spoke with Davey way back in like Chapter 5 or 6, I countered that the conversation didn't seem real because the good ol' Paster (this time around) was speaking with exactly the same sort of phrasing as his son. Not so in this chapter - Paster Jones has grown to be different from Davey in the way he talks, and I have no idea how Dan can inherently plot the dialogue that way. I do think though that Pastor Jones will probably overtake President Reagan as my favourite character in the DOR tale.

 

These two conversations contrast slightly with Dan's protrayal of Davey. At a few points in Davey's diction, I pondered the words that were put into his mouth because it seems more as if Dan was speaking rather than Davey. OK, everyone knows Dan to be the egotistical maniac, but when he starts stealing the thunder from his main character in the story, I begin to wonder if hell has frozen over.

 

Talking about hell, the one scene I'll pick out in this story is the Church sermon. The way the narrative was written almost made me squirm in my seat - I could feel the unpadded pews, experience the temperature of the church as the atmosphere heated from the large number of parishioners in attendence, hear the drone of the speaker going on about something that memory would not retain and experience the entire ambience of the scene.

 

Do those two paragraphs impact the story? Not in the very least. However, the narrative draws in the imagination of the reader and brings them to be with Davey in their thoughts as they read through the two short paragraphs. There is a bonding emphaty with Davey that somehow elevates him to a level that almost makes him seem flesh and blood. And therein shines Dan's brilliance craftmanship.

 

*I actually found the entire book online since the copyright has expired. The actual text is:

'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen.