Neil Jordan

Carnivalesque is an interesting fantasy offering from Neil Jordan. Andy goes to a carnival with his parents and, alone in a mirror maze, finds himself trapped inside a mirror, replaced by his reflection in the real world.

Andy is later spotted in the mirror by carny Mona, who drags him back. Going by Dany now, he realises that he has little choice but to remain as part of the strange world of the carnies. Mona involves him in her trapeze act and starts to induct him into their ancient and mysterious culture.

As Dany learns at the carnival, a mysterious force begins to stir elsewhere, with huge implications for the carnies.

Jordan has come up with an unusual scenario for this novel, but it does drag in places and there are a few loose ends in a plot that might have benefited from deeper exposition. It's slightly better than three stars, but I didn't think it was quite good enough for a higher rating.… (mere)

A boy walks into the hall of mirrors at a carnival only to be drawn into a mirror and replaced by his reflection. Then someone pulls him out, after which he stays with the carnies, who are in fact magical beings of folklore.

All of which actually makes it sound more straightforward than it probably is. Really, this is just an odd little novel. The prose is strange and dreamlike, and at some point near the end it shifts suddenly from a languid sort of fantasy to full-on horror and gets much more plotty than you'd expect for about ten minutes before it abruptly resolves all of that and moves rapidly to an end, if not exactly a conclusion. There's an interesting combination of familiar and novel elements here, and I actually did rather like the horror stuff, even if it did take me by surprise. The prose is sometimes rather pretty (even if not always as much so as it seems to think it is).

But overall, honestly, it feels to me like a literary experiment that's interesting enough to be worth a look, but just never quite fully works.… (mere)