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Walter Moers
Rumo & die Wunder im Dunkeln
(Rumo)
Piper Verlag, April 2003. 704 pp. This is the sequel to the acclaimed Käpt'n Blaubär, translated by John Brownjohn as The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear. The author of riotous fantasies, Walter Moers is surely the closest you can get to a modern-day German version of Lewis Carroll and the nonsense tradition of English literature. Many of Moers's amazing monsters could easily have slithy toves in their ancestry. Book One, like Captain Bluebear, is picaresque in tone. The protagonist, Rumo, is of a breed known as the Wolpertingers -- intelligent bipeds of canine origin equipped with small horns and descended from the union of a prince and a princess enchanted into the forms of a wolf and a deer. At puppy stage, Rumo is captured by giants and stored in their grotto larder. Soon another captive, Voltozan Smyke, the Shark Maggot, is teaching Rumo the history of their continent, Zamonia, including the creation of the mechanical army of Copper Men led by the terrifying General Ticktack. At last Rumo and his mentor escape and set out across Zamonia. Smyke goes off with the scholarly Dr Kolibril, while Rumo finds his way to the city of Wolperting where he continues his education, falls in love with a warrior's sister, and acquires his own twin-bladed sword, the two halves of which talk telepathically to each other.
And all this is just for starters. While Book One takes place in the World Above, Book Two is set in the World Below. There the inhabitants of Hel suck down victims from above to take part in gladiatorial contests held in the Theatre of Beautiful Death. Add to this brew an evil gnome-like king, his spin doctor Friftar, some dead Yetis, an alchemically created disease that kills the vile spin doctor and nearly does for the heroine, inventive typography and the author's own illustrations, and what do you get? A weird and wonderful masterpiece.
'(Moers) proves once again that he is a gifted and anarchic story-teller.' Tageszeitung
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