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The Wooden Sea: A Novel
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - A Splintery Riptide
A longtime lover of literature, I once asked a blind date if she was into books. "Books are alright," she said. "Although I prefer nonfiction. And I definitely don't have time for magical realism."
That phrase -- "I don't have time for magical realism." -- became sort of a running gag among my book loving friends and I. Maybe we're just mocking a world that brooks the supernatural less and less each day, or maybe we're just thumbing our noses at the idea that dream lives are only the domain of the asleep.
Whatever the case, it's certainly true that Magical Realism as a genre doesn't have quite the profile of, say, Fantasy. Even buffered by the brilliance of people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison, the genre seems to exist in the same misty half-worlds as the characters it generates.
Carroll's oeuvre makes a great case for the style, but not in any consistent fashion (a flaw common for this kind of fiction). His first book, The Land of Laughs, was a fun but mordant look at the nature of fate, fear, and the art of writing. It was tightly plotted, but just as madcap as anything written by that other, more notable, Carroll. Since then, Jonathan Carroll has made a decent living tickling the imaginations of loyal readers everywhere.
Like most of his books, THE WOODEN SEA offers the proposition that surrealism is more than a quaint diversion or (at worst) a camping ground for antisocial obssessives. In spite of its loopy plot and complete overhaul of common narrative conventions, it has a message to make. In fact, its canon has much to do with the genre itself. "Don't forget how to dream. Don't forget that anything is possible. Don't throw away your youth when you finally grow up."
These are okay points for a book to make (if not a little chewy-sweet), and Carroll's story -- about a juvenile delinquent-turned-police chief named Frannie who awakens one day to a world of Spirit Dogs, Magical Feathers, time travel, prescient heroin addicts, and otherworldly beings -- doesn't let the goofiness goof up the touching spirit of the book. There's a definite measure of heart and well-phrased soul to the story.
But there's also a lot of sloppy edges and unbridled bravado. Carroll has a vivid imagination, but it seems as if that was the only thing he used to write this book. Breaking rules isn't a bad thing, when you're talking about common conventions of Story or Plot, but this book reads painfully as if it were made up on the spot. Themes other than those mentioned are taken up and discarded at a whim. Story arcs dead-end or are sometimes forgotten entirely. And there are so many loose ends, the denoument reads like shag carpeting.
In spite of its sweetness, the novel suffers from a lack of boundaries. After all, even magic has its rules. If you're interested in Carroll -- and you should be -- I'd recommend his earlier works over this one (although I haven't read everything he's written). And if, unlike my blind date, you DO have time for magical realism, for my money you can't beat ANYTHING written by Jonathan Lethem.
Rating: - The Wooden Spoon....
This was a very odd book and not a book I would normally pick up and read. I was captured by the humor and the idea of this very strange plot. It's unique qualities kept my interest. The story is about McCabe. He is a cop in the town he grew up in. He is on his second marriage to a woman he really loves and a step father to Pauline. It was nice to see a good relationship between the step-parent and step-child for a change. One day a strange, crippled dog wanders into town and McCabe adopts him. Only to see him die shortly after. This is the catalyst that triggers the start of a bunch of surrealistic events. I think I understood one of the lessons this book was trying to teach and that was, every part of your life is important and helps build you into the man or woman you will become. However, I think there was more to this book, a deeper meaning that I just didn't get. And of course, the ending made me scratch my head and try and figure out all the loose ends. I can't say I really loved this book but it was so odd, I know I will never forget it.
Rating:  - Great read!
I picked up this book after reading Carroll's Glass Soup, which I liked, but left me a bit disappointed. I was much more satisfied with The Wooden Sea. I loved the characters, Carroll developed them all so well and the plot twists and turns. Carroll's sci-fi-ish, alternate reality set amongst the regular world is very thought provoking. I would have gave this book 5 stars, however, as with Glass Soup, Carroll leaves a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions. Still, I would recommend reading this to anyone, but especially, if you enjoy Neil Gaiman's work, or maybe even those who are Stephen King fans.
Rating:  - Best book by this author so far . . .
. . . Although it wouldn't surprise me if Carroll tops himself, numerous times, in the future. I pretty much loved everything about The Wooden Sea. I love the gruff and good-hearted manner of the narrator, Frannie, and his growth from a snot-nosed punk to a law enforcer and positive role model in his community. I love the snappy exchanges between Frannie and his wife, Magda, and the care Frannie shows towards his stepdaughter, Pauline. I love how nicely every event in Frannie's routine turns out until the strange arrival of a three-legged dog makes everything go strange. But I guess that's what you expect when you come into contact with a three-legged dog.
I also found the philosophical inquiries made by the novel to be very compelling. It's been two years since I first read The Wooden Sea and I still haven't completely let all of them sink in. The characters in the novel are very preoccuppied by the passage of time, the what-ifs that haunt you as you age and the small secrets your loved ones keep from you despite how well you know them. Carroll comes off as very wise in this novel, but not in the way of an old man who abhors the way younger men live. The narrator loves his life and works towards good things for all the people he knows. The wisdom in the story comes from a similar passion to enjoy life and honor life by doing the right things.
Rating: - A Little Sound and No Fury, Signifying Nothing
There's no doubt that Jonathan Carroll is a capable wordsmith. His writing is textured and fluid and he enjoys a capacious and imaginative narrative style. Sadly, the ease with which he weaves the story belies a lack of story organization or thematic development that ultimately deprives the reader from a significant payoff in any form other than admiration for Carroll's syntactical technique. On my decimal scale (0.0 to 5.0), this book gets a 2.7 because it does have the redeeming quality of being skillfully written.
Using several tropes from the fantasy genre, the story frames the internal struggles of a middle-aged chief of police seeking to make some sense of his life. Divorced and remarried, Frannie McCabe confronts death, that quintessential catalyst for existential crises, in an unusual tableau: he adopts a three-legged dog named Old Vertue - possibly the least subtle of Carroll's implied metaphors - who dies and won't stay buried, periodically reappearing in places like the trunk of Frannie's car.
Amid this existential puzzle appear a mystical feather and other portents of urgency that suggest something of cosmic significance is at stake. Although slightly entertaining, the roller-coaster effect of Carroll's A.D.D.-style of plot development has its limitations. Most significantly, the omens that Carroll so eagerly builds up throughout the novel result in a little sound and no fury, signifying nothing. The questions they are susceptible to raise are not especially profound and their utility in advancing the story development is questionable.
Implications of the symbolic end of virtue or the notion of "floating," feather-like as it were, simply remain largely disintegrated from the rest of the story. Taken within the context of the entire story, these implied metaphors appear superfluous and resemble an uncharacteristically inartistic and cheap tease to move the reader along through the book.
Moreover, Carroll provides little support within his story development for the central theme of perfectionism - moral or otherwise - that finally appears to anchor this book. Perhaps less time on dead-end auguries and shallow metaphors and more time examining the real psychological conflicts within his protagonist and his supporting characters would have served this book to touch on something truly profound.
But for a much better exposition of such themes, I would suggest watching Adam's Rib, Bringing Up Baby, and The Philadelphia Story, and if sufficiently intrigued reading "Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage" by Stanley Cavell.
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