(Originally published at
scallopskulledskald.blogspot.com)
Along with the full, illustrated text of The Face in the Frost, the
John Bellairs omnibus
Magic Mirrors: The High Fantasy and Low Parody of John Bellairs has
the extant text of an unfinished sequel The Dolphin Cross. While an
entertaining read, this fragment does not reach the Empyrean heights of
The Face in the Frost- the horrors presented are more concrete, as
opposed to the existential terrors that Prospero faces in TFitF,
and our beloved Prospero is more prone to a self-deprecation that only
surfaced a couple of times in that book. In the fragment, Prospero (like
the one we are thinking of) is sent to exile on a remote island after
being kidnaped. The South Kingdom, with its 572 petty rulers, is facing
internal strife as a strong leader begins amassing more power after
winning the typically nominal kingship. One particularly moving passage
describes Prospero's youth, when the former apprentice went "underground"
during a previous war. A hilarious passage has Prospero posing incognito
as a once-prosperous leech gatherer. The villain of the fragment is
portrayed with typical Bellairsian creepiness (the description of his
cutlery is wonderfully unsettling. Once again, Bellairs shows his
descriptive flair when writing of a building:
...
Once again, Bellairs demonstrates that he knows his craft, and his
Lovecraft. Reading The Dolphin Cross is a bittersweet exercise-
while it was nice to revisit Prospero (and, for a brief interlude, Friar
Bacon), one wishes that one had a complete novel. Additionally, while a
good read, TDC falls short of the giddy heights and eerie lows of
its predecessor.
Also included in Magic Mirrors is the breezy, absurd fantasy
The Pedant and the Shuffly, and
St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies which is an affectionate, though
irreverent, satire of Vatican II era Roman Catholicism. As can be
expected, the humor of the book is best appreciated by Catholics who can
laugh at such conundrums as whether consuming an olive in a martini breaks
a Lenten fast. The Lawful Neutral wing of the church would probably be
offended by the book, but the youngish, hip-ish roller skating nun who
teaches in the inner city Catholic school will love it. The rise and fall
of St. Floradora (whose existence was extrapolated from a skeleton
discovered during an archaeological dig in Pompeii, so you know where this
is going...) is one of the most uproariously funny things I've read in a
long time.
...
Of course, the entertainment value of the book is wholly dependent on
one's familiarity with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and
one's attitude toward irreverence. It's safe to say that Jorge de Burgos
would have hidden this one away in the Finis Africae section of the
library.
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