Review: Face "Book's Dark Events Are Generously Leavened With Wit"

Book review: The Face in the FrostBrought back into circulation after a long hiatus is John Bellairs' classic fantasy The Face in the Frost. First published in 1969, this book is aimed at a rather older readership than most of Bellairs' Gothic tales; in fact, it's really only marginally classifiable as young adult, for while its eccentric characters and whimsical humor are definitely kid-friendly, its strange, spooky atmosphere and creepily convincing terrors rank with the best of adult horror fiction.

A wizard named Prospero ("and not the one you are thinking of, either") lives in a fabulously peculiar house full of magical objects and assorted junk. Recently he's been disturbed by odd dreams, glimpses of watching figures at the edges of his garden, and an inexplicable sense of impending doom. A visit by his friend Roger Bacon (who is the one you are thinking of), on the track of an odd book written in an unreadable cipher, reveals that the book and Prospero's troubling visitations may be connected. The two wizards set out on a journey to track down the owner of the book, in an attempt to learn just what it is that's menacing Prospero.

From this relatively simple premise springs a tale of magical and supernatural terror. There isn't a great deal of plot--Roger and Prospero do eventually find out who's behind it all, and there is a final confrontation, but the book proceeds more as a series of scary setpieces, which take the wizards through poisoned woods and melting villages, and pit them against ancient curses, the risen dead, and the various freaks and perversions of nature that their adversary's study of the book has brought into being. Bellairs is a masterful prose stylist; these frightening happenings are described in a way that's genuinely bone-chilling, and build on one another to create a deepening atmosphere of dread. Though Prospero and Roger are accomplished sorcerers, they're clearly up against something beyond their strength; this uncertainty as to their ability to prevail (or even to survive) adds to the tension.

Bellairs is a humorist as well as a gothicist, and the book's dark events are generously leavened with wit (often at incongruous moments, such as when Prospero and Roger, in fear of their lives, must find a way to make a coach out of a rotten vegetable). Most of the time, though, the humor has the effect of making the darkness seem darker by contrast. And though there's a happy ending, with all the characters joyously reunited, Bellairs chooses to leave the reader with a pair of truly eerie images--which, even in the warmth and cheer of Prospero's kitchen, draw a final shiver up the spine.

Victoria Strauss

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