Ugh, this may be the worst Winnie the Pooh book I've read yet. It's a literary novel that travels in magical realism territory, meaning it is full of hallucinations and godawful dream sequences.

Christopher Robin Milne, the son of A. A. Milne, is having a midlife crisis of sorts, and travels to France in 1968 to meet a French college student who sent him a mysterious letter. The student wants to subvert Milne's heritage and make him a figurehead of the May 1968 civil unrest, a major turning point on the road to Charles de Gaulle's resignation the next year. The student also wants to get back together with his on-and-off girlfriend, who is currently trying to live her life as if she were the lead character of Bonjour Tristesse, a 1954 novel by Françoise Sagan.

I am unfamiliar with Sagan's novel, the May 68 events and most of the real people sprinkled throughout Lain's novel, so a lot of that is lost on me. But I am familiar with the Milne and Pooh side of things, and that side was pure crap, so I don't doubt the French half is also.

I think this is the type of novel that would be quite enjoyed by the academics and critics satirized in The Pooh Perplex.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) ( )

BILLY MOON is Douglas Lain's debut novel, and it's one of the most original fantasies I've read recently. We follow an alternate version of the grown Christopher Robin Milne, who is still coping with the fame thrust upon him by the success of Winnie the Pooh. Things aren't helped by the fact that he occasionally runs into things that are just plain impossible, and his son has been diagnosed with autism. As he struggles to connect with his son and make sense of his life in, he receives an invitation to Paris from student Gerrard Hand to join the May 1968 protests. The ensuing events form the meat of this book.

I had the constant feeling that I was missing something while reading BILLY MOON, but I also had the suspicion that this feeling was what the author intended me to feel. The themes of the book make sense, the prose is lyrical and flows beautifully, the magical realism is expertly done - sometimes delighting, but often frightening. If you're expecting a linear story where you know exactly what's going on, or even which reality you're on... this is not the book for you. I was left with a whole bunch of confusion at the end, but even though I was confused, at no point did I actually want to stop reading the book.

I wasn't quite sure whether I should even attempt a review of BILLY MOON, since I don't really have a clear verdict on it. I hope that posting my honest reaction qualifies, even if it's not in the traditional review format. I did read other reviews, and they seem universally glowing (I was tempted to write a similarly glowing one myself rather than admit to not quite getting everything in it), so I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot!

I plan to do a reread in a few months to see if I can get more from it, though, and I'll update this review when I do! ( )

A telling of the adult life of the boy in the Winnie The Pooh series, deliberately skewing any real events.
It did make me want to follow up on the memoirs written by Christopher Robin Milne, mentioned in the acknowledgements ("The Enchanted Places" and "The Path Through The Trees") to see how much liberty Lain took in rewriting Milne's life.
Not what I expected, from jacket blurb. Well written, and I've read Hesse & Sartre at the end of high school, but I don't enjoy the abstract mental convoluted thinking that makes you wonder what reality is. ( )