If C.S Lewis, Lewis Carroll, and maybe Arthur Conan Doyle sat down for tea in the middle of the Coliseum in Rome, these are the kinds of ideas that would be bouncing off the walls. Susanna Clarke THANK you, for reminding me what I love about reading. This novel brought me right back to my childhood. So enchanting, and truly the purest and most nourishing kind of escapism. Its always impressive when a book tackles ambitious themes, can simplify them with a well thought out plot-line, and gives its reader’s a satisfying conclusion. Here’s why I thinks this book has accomplished all of these things:

This is a story about a world which permeates the metaphysical, and a mystery focused on one individual within that world. While all this worlds oddities cannot be explained, it’s ok, because our protagonist is just as much an enigma as the world itself. Using the resources available to him he unravels his own mysteriousness, and our story wraps up without being to far-reaching. The world is just a beautiful and strange catalyst, not to be harnessed but instead relied upon and respected, in equal parts. In this way the books lessons are very much studies in introspection, isolation and self preservation (but also growth) against the pervading tides (literally, there is an ocean inside a house).

It’s written in a very patronizing manor, like you would see in a children’s book, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. That is one of the reasons I loved it so much. Children are wide eyed and inquisitive, often asking meaningful questions, without the future looming in the back of their minds. Instead they appreciate the present. They go out looking for what the universe will give today, without fear of retribution tomorrow. They haven’t (of course with certain exceptions) experienced the long years of hardship and rejection via their peers. We don’t expect them to know everything…. Well here’s an unpopular opinion. ADULTS shouldn’t be expected to know everything either. But it sure feel like we are