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. ( )

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. ( )

I kept reading because this novel reminded me in a direct, visceral, uncanny way of the stories my mother used to tell me at bedtime until I was 7 or so...my mother would start her story with a vivid character and describe them in great detail, and then some small, nearly inconsequential event would happen to this character, and then some other character would enter the story, and be described in turn with great detail, and this character too would experience some small event, and on and on, where the person I was supposed to care about as a protagonist kept changing every night or two, and the story never went anywhere.

The great nostalgia I felt while reading Carnivalesque, for precisely this meander of a storytelling style, kept me reading, because I had forgotten all about those times with my mother every night in those early years of my life.

But if you have no such fond memory of your mother telling you endless stories with no real story attached to them, then you may want to give it a skip. ( )

Looking through the maze of distorted reflections, Dany watches in horror as the boy who walks out of the house of mirrors, a boy who looks just like himself but isn’t, leaves the carnival with his parents. Trapped as a reflection in the mirror, Dany (now Andy) is rescued by Mona, a magical acrobat. Unable, or unwilling, to leave this fantastic place, Andy falls easily into the routine of the carnival. Back home, Dany’s mother struggles to understand her son, a boy who looks like Dany, but who seems “off”, sullen, and dark. When Burleigh, the creator of the house of mirrors returns and connects with the changeling, the stories of Dany and Andy converge, and take a dark turn. Carnivalesque by Neil Jordan explores a world of magic, a boy’s transition from childhood to adolescence, and the fragile line between reality and illusion. ( )

2.5 stars

Carnivalesque by Neil Jordan is a story about a boy named Andy who finds himself sucked through a mirror in a carnival’s house of mirrors. His reflection enters the real world and goes home with his parents, leaving Andy stuck and alone on the other side of the glass. He is not alone here, for this is the world of the Carnies, the carnival people, a place where magic is real. Meanwhile Andy’s mother watches the Not-Andy living with her family, wondering if this is merely Andy growing up or if this is something else, something more sinister.

The prose had me captivated and wanting to read more from the first page. The language used is beautiful and enchanting, perfect for depicting a world that overlaps our own, a place filled with magic and people who aren’t quite normal. I was also quickly invested in Andy’s family, namely in Andy and his mother, two characters that are both interesting in their own right.

Andy is not quite a child but not exactly a teenager, either. He knows something has changed within his family, but doesn’t know what. The air of sadness is palpable, but something he can’t quite get to the bottom of and doesn’t seem to wholly understand. The house of mirrors is a surprisingly frightening place. After being sucked into the mirror, he finds himself in a place very similar to our own world, yet quite different. When he speaks words seem to come out backwards, forcing him to be more careful with his words. In this place he has a new name, Dany, partially due to the difficulty of speaking and hearing the words correctly.

This metaphor is a bit heavy handed, I have to admit. The entire scene went from quite atmospheric and spooky to a bit drawn out and heavy handed. However, I do like that the mirror world is different from our own. The place itself was frightening. The new characters introduced were quirky, odd, and had more going on with them than perhaps met the eye.

It was Eleanor I found most interesting, however. We see a perspective not often seen in portal fantasies here – that of the parents left behind. What do the parents think? Do they notice that the boy who looks like Andy isn’t really him? What happens in the world left behind? These are all questions that are answered here. Eleanor’s struggle is real. There is an air of mystery here, Eleanor having the nagging feeling that something isn’t right with her son, but not knowing what.

As a whole, the first third or so of the novel stands tall and proud. It was intriguing. It flowed from place to place and character to character with easy. The second third doesn’t follow this same pattern. The majority of the second third is dedicated to world building and the backstories of characters not heavily involved in the plot. Reading had the tendency to grow tedious. We learn about the carnies, this new family of carnival workers that has taken Andy in. I never found myself very invested in any of the carnies, despite each of them having objectively interesting pasts. They were secondary characters at best, in no way the main characters of the novel. All forward momentum of the story was stopped in exchange for what is, essentially, an info-dump. Yes, very pertinent information was conveyed, but the manner was drawn out and dull.

Much reference is made to a former boy who fell through a mirror and the books and notes he kept on the carnies and their history. It seems a bit obvious to say that if all of this were related in more direct manner it may have been more interesting and felt less like a deviation from the plot. Passages from this book could have been used. At the very least past events could have been relayed through Andy instead of nearly writing him out for a chapter on end.

These chapters wind their way in so circular a manner that they finally manage to stumble upon the plot once more. The mystical yet spooky air of the novel changes. Real world events take a clear turn towards the horror genre, which may surprise some readers. Not-Andy proves just as strange, terrible, and frightening, as Eleanor supposed. A slow, meandering plot suddenly has a single focus. While a fun, edge of your battle concludes the novel, it proved to be ultimately unmemorable. I was not necessarily invested in the reasoning behind this attack on the carnies and ensuing fight, largely because I never felt very connected or invested in the carnies and their past.

What I was invested in was Eleanor. The ending of her plot was something I was both invested in and enjoyed. I found myself sympathizing with her more so than many of the other characters, and it was this ending that I enjoyed the most.

While hitting on some very deep topics and touching on things other, similar books don’t often both including, Carnivalesque just didn’t hold my attention the way it should have. The plot was meandering, there was too much backstory and info dumping, and side characters were thrust into a spotlight they were never really intended for. Regardless, I quite enjoyed the author’s prose, and do want to read more of his work.

This review and more can be found on my blog Looking Glass Reads. ( )