Three young strangers, who all happen to be Oxford men, meet in police custody. TheyTwo stars for awesome book design.
A rainy night in London, 1917 –
Three young strangers, who all happen to be Oxford men, meet in police custody. They were all rumored to be students of the ancient-languages professor who was found murdered in his study earlier that night.
Our POV character for most of the book goes by John. He is home from the War at the moment, but suffers debilitating flashbacks of the trenches. John was married recently, but thinks about his wife exactly once in the entire book. He also claims to have been a lazy student.
He finds himself stuck with Charles, a sarcastic fussbudget who wears glasses, and Jack, who’s a bit younger and has the reasoning ability of the average hammerhead shark. When the police question them and realize that none of the three could have been the killer or known about the attack, the three youths retreat to a private club where Charles has admittance. The club is on 22B Baker Street, which will tell you a lot about what kind of story we’re in for.
No sooner have they settled in when a strangely-dressed man with a funny mustache bursts in and tells them that they’re being hunted by evil fantastical creatures. The creatures want the mysterious atlas that the dead professor bequeathed to John.
The stranger—Bert—brings the three lads aboard his old-fashioned ship, the Indigo Dragon, and they sail from London right into another world: the so-called Archipelago of Dreams, where all myths are true…and the people are entangled in a dynastic struggle.
Content Advisory Violence: The professor at the beginning gets his throat cut. There is a big battle with apparently no notable casualties, except a character whom the author expects us to care about who gets blown up with a grenade. No gore to speak of.
Sex: In one exceptionally contrived scene, when the travelers have escaped the wreck of their ship and wash ashore upon an island, a male character and a female character wake up tangled suggestively in each other’s limbs. She extracts herself from him, embarrassed, and he informs her that she “look[s] good in wet clothes.”
Language: A few minor swears such as “hell,” “damn,” and “bloody.”
Substance Abuse: Some beer-drinking. Nobody gets hammered.
Nightmare Fuel: The Winter King captures the faun crew of the Indigo Dragon and feeds them to his crew. (Not shown, thank Aslan). I will be ranting about this later.
The Archipelago of Dead Trends Here, There Be Dragons was recommended to me ages ago by two former friends from my homeschool group, one of whom blurted out the twist, which is the only thing that made me want to read it anyway. With some books, the journey matters more than the destination; the question is not so much how it ends as how it reaches that point.
Unfortunately, the twist is much, much cooler than the book that contains it, and the three historical figures involved deserved better.
Okay, that’s not the actual first sentence, but it might as well be. The book is a mass of clichés and “things that were popular at the time it was published” (2006).
I can practically hear Owens’ agent and/or editors: “Everybody loved the Lord of the Rings, so write a book with a young Tolkien as the main character. Disney’s making a Narnia movie, so Lewis should be in it too. Throw in Charles Williams—no one knows who he is, so you’ll look smart for writing him in, and everything needs three main characters anyway, just look at Harry Potter! That Pirates of the Caribbean movie made a mint, so throw in some cool ships, plenty of meaningless McGuffins, and a female lead who communicates solely by pouting and yelling. And that book by the homeschooled boy that all the kids like--Aragorn? Eragon? Yeah, make sure there are plenty of dragons in it.”
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Irony: the book sets out to pay tribute to timeless fantasy and winds up being so dated it’s laughable. All it’s missing is a Hot Topic exclusive concept album featuring the immortal stylings of Metro Station and Tokio Hotel.
If there’s one thing the Inklings never were, that thing would be “trendy.”
And Tolkien, for one, was never a fan of combining disparate genres. He didn’t enjoy his friend Lewis’ Narnia books because Tolkien found the combination of high fantasy and Victorian kid-lit tropes offensive on an aesthetic level. High Kings and Dryads and power-hungry Sorceress Queens did not belong in the same story with talking beavers who eat toast with marmalade and use a sewing machine, Tollers insisted. It’s okay for the lofty and noble Elves of Imladris or Lórien to coexist with four-foot-tall, hairy-footed humanoids who have names like Bungo Baggins and eat eleven meals a day, but Eldar preserve us from a faun who carries an umbrella.
That said, Tolkien’s persnickety method made Middle-earth the most believable, tangible fantasy world of all time. Every detail is consistent. None of Lewis’ worlds—neither the space realms of Malacandra and Perelandra nor Narnia and the surrounding lands—have anywhere near the same level of work put in. That’s not to say at all that Lewis was an inferior writer or creator, he just lacked Tolkien’s attention span, and he felt that variety was more important than consistency.
If the patchwork nature of Narnia irked Tolkien, the universe of Star Wars would have given him migraines, Once Upon a Time would have nauseated him, and Here, There Be Dragons…might well have given the poor man a coronary. Which Owens would have known had he bothered to extend his research beyond a Google search about his characters.
Realms of Inaccuracies Historical fiction—or historical fantasy, in this case—is made or broken by its fidelity to the people and place it purports to be about. There are numerous errors in this book that prove that Owens knows very little about his subject matter.
1). As far as I know, Tolkien never went by “John.” His friends and colleagues called him “Tollers,” but that nickname might have given away the whole premise, so I don’t blame Owens for not using it. Tolkien’s family called him Ronald. Ronald or Ron would have been fine for the purposes of the story.
2). The physical description of Jack—fidgety and fair-haired—could have described Tolkien at this time, but never Lewis. Tollers stood 5’9” at his tallest, and was always slim and quiet. In his youth, he had blond hair. Jack was 5’10” and always sturdy (stout in his older years), with a booming voice, gregarious mannerisms, a ruddy complexion, and black hair.
3). Not only was Jack a bit bigger and much louder than his friend, he was an extrovert, who always said exactly what he thought and was interested in pretty much everything. Tollers was an introvert, who considered his words carefully before saying them aloud in a low voice, and who had a narrow range of interests that he dove deeply into and become an expert on. The two certainly balanced, and arguably needed, each other—and allowing for the conceit of this story, Tolkien would indeed make a better guardian of a powerful magical artifact. But the de facto leader of the group would probably have wound up being the charismatic and accessible Jack. The Inklings sprang up around him. The portrayal of him in this book—as an immature twerp with a head full of bad ideas—is frankly insulting.
4). Tolkien was madly in love with his wife Edith and wrote to her constantly during their courtship and his army service after their marriage. Had he gone on a magical adventure, he would have missed her terribly and written her reams of letters. She was only his muse and the inspiration for Lúthien Tinúviel, after all.
4). There is no hint here of the unspoken rivalry between Tolkien and Williams. The two men greatly admired each other’s work, but Tollers secretly found Charles a little too occult-minded. He worried that Charles might be a bad influence on Lewis; Tollers had successfully prompted Jack to convert to Christianity, and hoped to convince him to accept Roman Catholicism. He was afraid that Williams would mess up that plan.
5). Dragons were never a good sign in Inkling books. In Tolkien, they could project sophistication, but were ultimately wicked, stupid, overgrown worms. In Lewis, they were either slinking about in the background, or you might get transmogrified into one to be cured of your selfishness and greed. In Middle-earth, Narnia, or any of the planetary realms, the image of a dragon flying in to save the day would be patently absurd. As previously mentioned, friendly dragons were the in thing at the time of publication, but they don’t belong in the Inklings Origin Story.
Samaranth is set up not unlike Smaug, smug and threatening and happy to chat, but the book expects us to believe he’s a good guy. He and his pals here fulfill the plot function of Tolkien’s Eagles, which, knowing how Tolkien and his compatriots felt about dragons, is all kinds of wrong. It makes me seriously wonder if Owens actually read any of these men’s books.
7). Owens’ treatment of fauns is equally out-of-sync with his sources. None of them are given lines or names, and it appears that they communicate mostly in goatish screeching and may not even be capable of speech. When the Indigo Dragon is boarded by the Winter King, he collects the fauns who make up the crew, and they are never seen again. Aven says that the poor creatures will be fed to the WK’s army of discount Ringwraiths. The heroes are only mildly alarmed at this declaration.
This is not true to the origins of fauns/satyrs in classical mythology, which tells of many individuals who were distinct persons, such as Silenus or Marsyas. They might have done most of their thinking with their hormones, but they still qualified as people.
And it’s highly untrue to the Lewis character of Mr. Tumnus, the story-teller, the scarf-wearer, the sardine-eater, the book-collector, the traitor who redeemed himself, who forged such a beautiful friendship with the little girl whom he met by the lamppost. I’m aghast that Owens considers Tumnus a subhuman creature who’s good for nothing but cheap labor and bargain-brand Nazgûl food.
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”I Am No Man” There are more problems with the book, most of them named Aven Wells. She has nothing in common with any Inkling heroine, and could not have logically inspired any of them. We need an Éowyn or a Susan Pevensie here, not a knock-off of the Keira Knightley character from Pirates who somehow manages to be even more irritating than the original.
Elizabeth Swann might have pouted and hollered her way through the whole adventure, but at least she didn’t spit every time she finished a sentence. She was also pretty smart—this supposedly sheltered aristocrat turned out to be a natural at double-crossing and out-maneuvering pirates. And while none of the other women around her were on par with Jane Eyre or Aerin Dragon-killer, they were fairly cool, especially Captain Anamaria, a minor but memorable character played by Zoe Saldana who disappeared after the first installment for some reason. Also, at least they existed.
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Aven would be much less annoying if she were not the only woman—or even female creature—in the entire story. As previously stated, Elizabeth was not the only woman in the Pirates-verse, and even the Inheritance Cycle, which I consider the male nerd gaze run amok, had a few interesting female characters to balance out the horrid Arya. There was Angela the fortune teller, Elva the cursed little girl, and of course Saphira the formidable dragon. All these dragons flying about in this book and none of them is specified as female.
Again, this doesn’t work as an Inklings origin story because powerful and terrifying women are easy to find in Inklings books, on either side of the good and evil divide. Shouldn’t there be a pseudo-Galadriel or pseudo-Jadis to inspire our heroes? Shouldn’t there be girls on this adventure—girls like Éowyn and Susan and Aravis and Jill? Why not bring Dorothy Sayers or Joy Davidman Gresham along, we’re playing fast and loose with Inkling history anyway. AND WHY DOES “JOHN” NEVER WRITE TO, OR EVEN THINK ABOUT, EDITH?!?
Even at the very end, when the boys see all the famous writer signatures in the atlas’ endpapers, all the writers are male save Mary Shelley. At first I thought they had to be fantasy writers, but nope. If Dickens and Twain qualified, there’s no reason for Austen, the Brontës, Gaskell and Eliot not to.
Accidental Racism It’s also a little weird that both villains in the book look Asian, and dress like medieval Mongolians or wear Chinese robes, when all the good guys are extremely European in origin.
It’s even weirder because the main villain is an Arthurian character, and therefore should be as Anglo as they come.
Granted, there’s a little accidental racism in some of the Narnia books, and some would argue it’s even present in The Lord of the Rings. But it is important to note that those books were written in the 1950s and early 60s, in a time when white people were just beginning to realize that other cultures were just as respectable as their own Western legacy. These authors were not intentionally disparaging other cultures. And Lewis should get credit for Shasta/Cor and Aravis, who might well be the first interracial pairing in the history of YA fiction.
That said, there was no excuse for this type of thing in 2006. It was a bad look in Pirates--that shot of Captain Jack Sparrow running along the beach is priceless, but he doesn’t need to be being chased by cannibals. And it’s a bad look here.
And a Fangirl Gripe This is the leader of Tolkien’s goblins. He is called the Great Goblin.
Conclusions Here, There Be Dragons is a very silly book that managed to make timeless writers dated, and has no understanding of its own subject matter. Its sole saving grace are the illustrations and fonts, which are very aesthetically pleasing. But the novel itself is pompous fluff that has not aged well. Read if you want something ridiculous to laugh at, but not recommended for sincere enjoyment....more
Professor Louis Markos distills the moral wisdom of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia in his warmly-written, accessible Professor Louis Markos distills the moral wisdom of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia in his warmly-written, accessible nonfiction work, On the Shoulders of Hobbits.
Many readers - myself included - can sense a healthiness in the works of Tolkien and Lewis absent in other fantasies, but can't articulate the difference. This book can help! Markos ties the major events of the books in with passages from the Bible and the classics of Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.
Markos doesn't either ignore or overtly emphasize the Catholic worldview of Jack and Tollers, so fans from all Churches should feel comfortable reading. Unfortunately, non-religious fans might be scared off by the word "Virtue" in the title. I hope they won't be; the book is very good and may improve their opinion of Christians.
A worthy analysis from a writer who clearly loves the classics and sees Lewis' and Tolkien's works in their rightful place therein. If you want even more analysis, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings might be your next stop from here. Kreeft, who wrote the preface to Shoulders, has a more academic style than Markos, and Philosophy is a less accessible book. Its focus is ostensibly Tolkien, but Lewis is an inescapable presence, not that one would wish to escape him anyway.
Both books are well worth the time of anyone who has walked in Narnia and Middle-earth....more
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