THE HOUSE IN THE CURULEAN SEA (2020)
By T(ravis) J Klune
Tor Books, 396 pages.
★★★★★
If you like fantasy books, The House in the Cerulean Sea is like a Harry Potter-meets-Tim Burton novel for adults. It is also one of the most wildly creative works of fiction I’ve read since Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.
On paper, 40-year-old Linus Baker has an interesting job. He’s a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). You read that correctly. At some unspecified period in British history–probably either an alternative present or a very near future–magic has been decriminalized, though many individuals without such attributes distrust those who have them. (You can probably infer analogies to immigrants and people of color.) If it’s not easy being paranormal, imagine what’s it’s like for special needs children, some of whom don’t even have human bodies.
That alone is an interesting twist on social work, but Baker isn’t exactly Mr. Excitement. He’s a roly-poly asexual bachelor, lives in an undersized home, is unpopular among his DICOMY colleagues, and his only real companion is Calliope, a cat with a mind and loyalties of its own. His job title notwithstanding, Baker is akin to the Charles Dickens character Thomas Gradgrind (from Hard Times); that is, he’s more of a cipher than a dynamo. He’s a facts guy like Gradgrind and a stickler for bureaucratic detail. He has memorized most of the DICOMY manual Rules and Regulations and treats it the way some literalists use holy books. Moreover, DICOMY isn’t an easy place to work. In what is perhaps a nod to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a shadowy group known only as Extremely Upper Management (EUM) issues directives and employees know that it’s seldom good if commanded to board the elevator and appear before the EUM.
When Linus gets exactly such a summons, his colleagues prepare to divvy up the remains from what they assume will be his firing. They’re wrong; Linus has been given a special task for which he feels wholly unprepared. He is chosen because he’s a gradgrind who assumes Rules and Regulations protects children. EUM wants to send Linus to a coastal village, where he is to board a boat to an offshore island to investigate Marsyas Orphanage and its unconventional proprietor, Arthur Parnassus. The island name alludes to a Greek myth of a musical satyr who angered the gods. If Baker was apprehensive before, imagine setting foot on an island whose children are considered dangerous. They include Talia, a bearded female gnome who loves gardens; the diminutive Sal, a shapeshifter; lithe Phee, a sprite; the obsequious squid-like Chauncey, who dreams of becoming a bellhop; and Theodore, a wyvern (winged dragon), who communicates in chirps. It’s most infamous resident, though, is Lucy; it’s short for Lucifer and his father is listed as Satan!
Calliope seems at home, but Linus is understandably ill at ease. Arthur and caretaker Zoe Chapelwhite aren’t what he expects either. Arthur doesn’t give a fig about Rules and Regulations. He sees his brood merely as children in need of healing and guidance, encourages Linus to get to know them, and trusts Baker to write his report to EUM however he feels is appropriate. He even encourages a field trip to the mainland village, a place the children have never been and whose residents are not exactly comfortable with the idea, though they’re very content to take government subsidies to supply the island through Chapelwhite or the price-gouging ferryman Merle.
As you can imagine, there’s not much the meets the eye that can be trusted on or off the island. The House in the Cerulean Sea is true to its subject in that it’s magical, but it’s more than that. It’s a reminder that surfaces are seldom the same as essence, an exploration of hidden identities, a paean to nature, a celebration of play, a cover-up, a love story, and a road map for how Linus finds his groove. Leave it someone named Lucifer to correct Linus when he proclaims he has no magic: “You do Mr. Baker. Arthur told me there can be magic in the ordinary.” Think of it; to those deemed weird, normal is exotic.
I will admit that sometimes the novel has a YA feel, but isn’t that another magical thing? How often must adults be remembered that wonderment comes in many forms and is everywhere when they bother to look for it? Or that, as another character put it, “You fear what you don’t understand.” Open this book and prepare to be enchanted.
Rob Weir
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