I think a big reason I could even read this book at all is because Bellairs was such a good writer and created such human, relatable characters. You can’t help but feel for Lewis, especially over his misguided friendship with the totally not worth it Tarby - a friendship that leads him to wake the dead. Kids do such crazy things to fit in, no?
I’ve been dropping the name “John Bellairs” into casual conversation lately. To many, it means nothing. But to people of a certain age — men in particular — the name makes their eyes light up like I’ve just mentioned their favourite Thundercat. (Panthro, in most cases.)
Clocks disarm me, with their incessant nagging of the marching of time, and the idea of a clock to end the world is well, fitting with my dislike. It would be a clock to ruin all the fun of living with a wizard. My hero, a fat teenager loses his parents and has to live with his uncle Johnathan.
The book was The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs. A lonely boy gets caught up in an epic magical adventure, involving a magical ring, a cursed statue, and the possible end of the world. Awesome stuff, fantastically written – funny, dramatic, adventurous, and terrifying...It certainly didn’t scare me enough to keep me from devouring it – I re-read it so many times that the cover eventually fell off. It was a cover, incidentally, that had it’s own special appeal – illustrated and designed by the fantastic Edward Gorey. This was the kind of stuff I lived for. Gothic adventures that I could easily imagine myself getting caught up in.
There were a couple of things which struck me, reading this as an adult, that I didn’t notice as a child. While the point of view hops a few times, I didn’t notice or care when I read this as a child. Now it’s been pounded into my head that POV switches without scene changes are a no-no, but I’m starting to think that this is a current fashion, rather than an inviolate rule. Also, at a certain point Lewis needs to be rescued, and it’s up to Rose Rita, Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmerman to rescue him. Mrs. Zimmerman does most of it, providing the means and the knowledge of where and when they need to go. If I were looking at this critically, with a fresh eye, I might suggest that we have a little more foreshadowing of who and what the figure was. Having Mrs. Zimmerman provide a parlour-room “this is what happened” scene struck me as another one of those writing conventions that people don’t use so much anymore. It’s also a wee bit Deus Ex Machina, that Mrs. Zimmerman both knows where to go, what to do, and has the tools (to give Rose Rita) to solve the problem.
Plot is not a strength of the book. Basically the entire story is Prospero walking north, evading the occasional trap set for him by his quarry. There’s an element of mystery to the whole thing, which helps to drive the story early on, but Prospero and Roger figure out what they’re up against relatively quickly. Even the book’s resolution is… not perfunctory exactly, but it’s not terribly satisfying either.
But nonetheless I think that The Face In The Frost is an absolute masterpiece, and the reason for this lies in Bellairs’s unparalleled ability to conjure atmosphere and horror. Basically, this book is creepy as hell.
