Book Review: The Book of Doors

 By Gareth Brown

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Fantasy, magical realism

• Where I bought this book: Enchanted Novelties, Harrison, Ohio. 

• Why I bought this book: The story's concept is intriguing 

• Bookmark used: Volumes Bookstore, Chicago    

 *****

    One of the many problems with incorporating the idea of time travel into your novel is that it is inherently inconsistent. You cannot get around the fact that travel into the past is impossible. You can ignore that and claim that your characters are unable to change their present, because if that is so, what's the point? And you can ignore the idea of a djinn particle -- which allows for items to exist in a time loop, never having been invented. 

    So, you just fudge it, and let things happen without explaining them. It may cause confusion, but hey, it's just a novel, right? Don't take it too seriously.

    But in The Book of Doors, Brown wants to be taken seriously. He wants to explore the ideas of existence, of love and hate, of goodness and evil. But he leaves several big, gaping holes in his story -- such as the existence of different versions of the same person living in the same time dimension, with nothing untoward happening.

     He suffers from the flaws of many debut novels -- wanting to cram too much into the story and the writing, and not knowing when to quit.

    It's not a flawless read, but it's okay for something to sit down with on a cold winter's night.

    Here's the concept: Cassie, an unexceptional young woman who loves books, has moved to New York City and taken a job in a bookstore. She lives with a roommate, Izzy, who is far more outgoing and gregarious. One fateful evening, Mr. Webber, an older man she has befriended, dies in the store and leaves her a mysterious book.

    It's the Book of Doors, and among its scribbled texts and sketched images is a note explaining that using it means "any door is every door." Mr. Webber's added note says she  should "enjoy the places it takes you to and the friends you find there."

    But of course there is more to the book, and Cassie gets caught up in a whirlwind that threatens not only her life, and Izzy's life, but the lives of the people she meets, and, indeed, the very existence of time and space itself.

    She'll discover, through the friends and foes she meets -- including the Librarian and the Bookseller -- the enormity of what she had gotten herself into. It's truly an overwhelming adventure, not only for Cassie, Izzy, and their band of others, but for the reader. It's also a but gruesome at times.

    The characters are a mélange of the nice, the creepy, and the tropes. One, known only as "the woman," is macabre beyond measure. Another, an evil sort who gets tossed into the Old West, returns decades later as a cliche, and I half-expected him to declare himself the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the west.

    It'll carry you along, fer sure, but only if you squint hard and don't ask too many questions.

Book Review: Summerland

 

•  Author: Michael Chabon

• Where I bought found this book: Kenton County Public Library giveaway at the Pride Festival, Covington, Ky.

• Why I bought collected this book: Magic. Baseball. A perfect double-play. And it was free.

******

    A motley crew of young children, faeries, giants, and assorted folkloric creatures inhabit our four worlds, but a combination of ecological destruction, meanness, and a bored creator who wants to end it all threaten its very existence.

    Enter baseball, a game with a mythology all its own, which could either make things right or cause further destruction.

    Indeed, baseball is already at least partly responsible for the latter. Author Chabon -- obviously a fan of the traditional game --  posits that the introduction of the designated hitter tore a hole in the fabric of the universe, leading to its current downward path. 

    This is a fun, if sometimes unwieldy undertaking. At 500 pages -- precisely the number of lifetime home runs that once ensured enshrinement in Cooperstown -- it's sometimes overwhelming. And its characters -- including a girl who loves the game and plays it well, and a boy who is uncertain about it all, but accedes to his widowed father's wishes that he play -- tends to be, shall we say, tropes of the trade.

    They include a mournful Sasquatch -- don't call her bigfoot! -- a mean giant, a changeling boy who feels lost in our world, and a ferisher scout who may not be immortal but has Seen It All. Also, a Major League star -- a ringer!! -- who defected from Cuba, a car that can fly and runs on moonshine, and a magical bat taken from the tree that feeds the worlds.

    They come together to save the universe in a novel that is themed, inspired, and timed by baseball. It's enjoyable -- the writing is (for the most part) crisp, the characters are wonderful (if a bit predictable), and the story is a magic fable tied together by a love for baseball.

Book Review: The Midnight Library

 The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

    Imagine, if you will, a young, drab British woman named Nora Seed. She is depressed. She lives a sad, lonely life. Her music career fizzled out, and she cannot make it as a music tutor. She is stuck in a dead-end job she hates. She lives in a ratty apartment. She regrests dumping her latest boyfriend because she has no other prospects. 

    Oh yeah, and her cat just died.

     So she decides to end it all by taking a handful of sleeping pills and crawling into bed. But instead of dying, she wakes up in a library. An unusual library with row-upon-row-upon-row of books. The neverending tomes stream by at various speed. Sitting at a nearby table is a woman who looks suspiciously like her childhood school librarian, Mrs. Elm.

    Nora soons learns she did not die, but instead is visiting the Midnight Library, a place between time and space. The books contain the story of every one of her possible lives, changing like butterflies with every single decision she has made.

    So she picks a book, reads the first line, and enters an alternative life.

    Which is a cool idea, and opens up a whole timeline of changes, possibilities, and adventures. But its realization has  two severe flaws.

    One is that Nora jumps into a new life with all the memories of her old life, but having no idea what she was getting into. For instance, in her first jump, she finds what would have happened if she had married her beau and moved with him to buy a pub in rural Ireland. This happens in other jumps -- her being a rock star on stage without a clue as to what comes next, as a wife and mother who doesn't know who the child in her room is, and as a scientist with no knowledge of her speciality. So she has to fake it.

    The second problem is that Nora whinges. A lot. Some of her whinging is passed off as part of her depression, and some is part of her learning experience. But jeez, she is not a likable character.

    But the story does draw you in. You wonder in which life Nora will be satisfied. You enjoy the interludes at the library, where philosophical discussions with the Mrs. Elm lookalike bring exposition, background, and deep thoughts.

    It's an intriguing, well-written book, which gives insights to the bizarre yet conceivable ideas of time bending and alternative realities.

Book Review: The Hidden Reality

The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene

I finished this book after about six years of on-and-off reading. Its difficult subject matter and the level of concentration required meant I could take it in only small doses. And that, of course, meant I often had to look back at previous explanations to understand the additional subject matter.

Oh yes, when I use the word "understand," I use it in the widest definition possible. Let's just say I have a nodding acquaintance with the topics. 

But Greene is an excellent writer and teacher. He uses strong yet simple metaphors to explain difficult concepts. He has helped me understand string theory -- to the point that I think I know what it is and how it works, although not enough to explain it to anyone else.

In this book, Greene reaches into whether multiple universes exist. Which, of course, gives lie to the term universe, but allows for some mind-boggling thoughts, ideas, and suppositions.

He dedicates chapters to how and why other universes might exist, sometimes right alongside ours, but in another dimension. There's the inflationary universe, which posits an eternity of Big Bangs --universes coming into being via a massive explosion of a tiny particle, expanding, then some of it shrinking back into another single particle before the entire exercise recurs.

He explains several others, deftly noting how some would prove string theory or black holes, or how some would mimic our universe, with only slight changes. He discusses whether  such universes would follow the same mathematical and physical rules as ours, and even goes so far to debate whether computers could form universes that would then create sentient beings. (Maybe ours is one?)

Greene says it is possible that quantum theory could explain multiple universes -- perhaps in the notion that every possible outcome has occurred somewhere in the infinite number of universes.   

These are universes we may never see because they are in different dimensions, or in a different fabric of time. It's unlikely we could ever prove their existence. This is a dilemma Greene acknowledges. 

"By invoking realms that may be forever beyond our ability to examine -- either with any degree of precision, or, in some cases , even at all -- multiverses seemingly erect substantial barriers to scientific knowledge. ... More distressing is that by invoking a multiverse, we enter the domain of theories that can't be tested."

With this, sometimes the theories in the book seem to swing away from science and more into theology and speculation. Sometimes, the ideas become so complicated that only a select few could  understand -- after all, few of us are Einstein.

But Greene says the answer is to follow the math. Take it as far as it can go, then keep going. He said past scientists who doubted their math -- even Einstein -- committed errors because of it. Those who trusted their math -- again, Einstein and others -- reached great heights because of it.

Believe in math's properties, and believe where it takes you, Greene says, even if those places are remote and temporarily inaccessible. Then let it take you beyond that realm, with the underlying goal to expand the knowledge of who we are and where we live.