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Russell Hoban
Russell Hoban is the author of dozens of books for readers of all
ages, including the Frances the Badger picture books for children
and Turtle Diary for adults. He is the winner of the 1982
John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the 1983 Ditmar Award for his
classic science fiction novel, Riddley Walker.
ISFDB Bibliography
Russell Hoban Tribute Site
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A review by Victoria Strauss
Thirteen-year-old Nick Hartley is not quite an outcast, but
definitely an outsider, and worried that he is a failure. After
losing yet another fight with a schoolyard bully, he is on his
way home when he encounters a strange concertina-playing ex-magician
named Moe Nagic, who has an unusual jigsaw puzzle to sell.
The puzzle is made from a watercolor painting called "The
Trokeville Way." What makes it unusual is that it's a picture one
can actually go into, like another world. Moe agrees to sell Nick
the puzzle, together with the gyroscope that will help him move in
and out of it, but warns him that things in the puzzle-world aren't
the way they look from the outside. The bridge in the picture
isn't a bridge; it's a "brudge." The little wood above it isn't a
little wood, it's a "little would." Further on is a "mise" -- a
maze; beyond that lies the town of Trokeville. The only way to
get to Trokeville is to perform a "troke" -- a combination, Moe
thinks, of a trick and a stroke, though he admits he isn't really
sure. He's been going into the puzzle for years, but he's never
gotten that far.
Nick takes the puzzle home, and uses the gyroscope to find his way
in. The puzzle-world is even stranger than Moe has described, a
place "heavy with dread." Odder still, there are people in it: a
woman half-seen through the trees of the little would, and Harry
Buncher, the schoolyard bully, on the brudge. Harry inside the
puzzle-world is just like Harry in real life: he picks a fight
with Nick, and manages to smash the gyroscope that is the only way
out. Nick is stranded, lost in a bizarre other-reality that may be
real or may all be just a figment of his imagination, with no idea
of how to extricate himself.
The Trokeville Way is a slim book, more novella than novel,
but it packs a powerful, creepy punch. The discordant atmosphere
of the puzzle-world is compellingly evoked:
"Everything had a loneliness about it, the way the world must have
looked at the beginning, when there were no people and the first
rains filled up the oceans. The sky was rumbling with thunder and
flickering with lightning. The... thundery twilight seemed to be
holding its breath and everything I looked at was quivering a
little as if it might suddenly let go and disappear."
The novel is heavily symbolic. Each of the puzzle-world's
features -- the brudge, the little would, the mise, Trokeville
itself -- are representations of the hurdles of adolescence.
Throughout his journey, Nick encounters people from his past or
present who have gotten stuck at one stage or another. He himself
keeps moving forward; eventually he stumbles out of the
puzzle-world, without ever having gotten to Trokeville. Trokeville, it
turns out, is not inside the puzzle-world at all: it's a place
within oneself, reachable only through rage. Once Nick discovers
this, he is able to face and finally defeat his nemesis, Harry
Buncher. Success, Hoban seems to be saying (bucking the current
New Age trend), isn't just accepting who you are, but accepting who
you are and being able to beat your enemies to a pulp.
The novel would have profited, I think, from some amplification at
the beginning and the end: Nick's encounter with Moe Nagic, a
pivotal character, is a bit sketchy, and the book ends a little too
suddenly. But the central portion, in which Nick struggles through
the creepy world of the puzzle, is fully realized and beautifully
written, making The Trokeville Way a fascinating and
thoroughly worthwhile read.
Copyright © 1998 by Victoria Strauss
Victoria Strauss is a novelist, and a lifelong reader of fantasy
and science fiction. For an excerpt of her Avon EOS
novel, The Arm of the Stone, visit her
Web site.
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