Walter Moers: The 13 1/2 Lives Of Captain Bluebear

Secker & Warburg

$64.95

Review: John McCrystal*

One of the positive effects of the Harry Potter phenomenon is that it is now okay for adults to read children's books. Thanks to J.K. Rowling, anyone who is not of fundamentalist Christian convictions can once again enjoy the experience of immersing themselves in pure fantasy.

As fantasy goes, it's hard to get much purer than this strange book. It describes itself as the demibiography of a seagoing bear, because it covers only 13 1/2 of the 27 lives of the principal character, Bluebear.

It is set in and around a land named Zamonia, a continent situated between North America, Africa and Murkia, capital city Atlantis. It adjoins our reality spatially and temporally in uncertain ways. There are human beings of familiar nationalities - Italian, Chinese - but there are any number of curious creatures besides: Bolloggs (giants several miles high who are prone to detaching their heads and putting them aside while they go off in search of, er, their heads), Troglotrolls (innately untrustworthy, cave-dwelling trolls), fatoms (the transparent inhabitants of mirage-cities), hobgoblins and, of course, chromatic bears, of which our hero, Bluebear, is one.

Bluebear was found (not born, so far as anyone knows), floating in a walnut shell, by a band of mini-pirates (tiny creatures who sail the seas in search of something their own size to prey upon), and this book chronicles his subsequent adventures.

It bears superficial resemblances to other fantasies: the way in which Bluebear is kept informed by The Encyclopaedia of the Marvels, Life Forms and other Phenomena of Zamonia and Environs, implanted in his mind by the seven-brained Professor Abdullah Nightingale, is reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for example. In the end, however, it defies comparison. It is completely emancipated from any Gulliverian aspiration to reflect reality in fantasy, and makes for total escapism.

Not only does it use a variety of printing techniques - varying fonts, font sizes and styles - but it is also beautifully illustrated by the author, who is apparently well known as a cartoonist and illustrator in his native Germany.

It's a big book (700 pages), but the pictures and frills break up the text. It is, what's more, a breeze to read: Moers' imagination keeps tugging you insistently along by the hand, and it's hard not to like Bluebear. It has its moments of drama, but there's nothing so scary that it would trouble a child's dreams. For the parent who has a year's bedtime-story slots to fill, this is the perfect Christmas gift.

* John McCrystal is an Auckland freelance writer.