Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

I have always had a complicated relationship with the first book. Because when I originally read it I found it a little disappointing. The idea was marvellous, as was the story, but something about the writing style I have always found a bit distancing, although try as I might, I cant put my finger on what that factor is.

Also for me, there never felt like there was a need for a follow-up story. It felt like it had said what it needed to say. And frankly – it had.

Wobbly Foundations

I did not like this book.

Storywise it is a bit of a mess. Like, we were fully halfway through before I started to feel any energy or action. Nothing that happens in the first half has any stakes.

Take the whole court scene – what was it for?

I’m not really sure why Arthur needed to testify, what the outcome of the hearing was supposed to be? Why was it important to the government or the society? Why was the hearing important to Arthur and Linus and the kids? And most importantly did it achieve those objectives and if not what were the repercussions? I can’t answer any of this. Mostly because it has no repercussions on Linus and Arthur, they just steam on to the next plot point.

If you want to spend this much page time on something then it needs to mean something to the protagonists, they need to have something important depending on it. It needs to have a effect on the climax or ending. In this case it just feels like stuff-that-happens. Worse, it obviously just exists to introduce the big baddie Rowder, but it’s a melodramatic set-up that doesn’t throw out much punch when she does finally reappear at the climax. Maybe it would have worked if she felt more alive in the story.

The verbal tussle they (Rowder and Arthur) have in the courtroom left a restless and unsatisfied feeling under my skin. It was an infuriating conversation, but it never gets a resolution, nor do I understand its impact on Arthur.

The other tangent that I don’t believe gives us much payoff was the entire arc concerning David. Now, okay, he was probably necessary because it’s a thread dropped into the first book and fans would have complained. BUT what does he bring to the story that was not already being covered by the other characters? His introduction to the island and family went on forever and it was so boring.

And this isn’t just my aversion to happy families – this sequence has no drama in it. David doesn’t push back on his new family, the other children don’t push against David. There is a brief issue with Lucy being angry at Arthur, but it’s resolved immediately with a reasonable conversation – boring.

We, the readers, always knew that David was going to be accepted into the family, it’s the central theme of the fucking series. So a series of scenes of oh look how funny, and quirky, and accepting we are is enough sugar to rot my metaphorical teeth. David adds nothing to the story, he’s not carrying his narrative weight.

There is also the rather odd choice to change the POV for this story to Arthur. Honestly I think it was a mistake. The mystery surrounding him was a key charm of the first book – not just his history but that sense that he always knows more of what is going on than he should, that he may have powers beyond the reader’s ken. In this rendition he just becomes a man. No mystery. No powers. And its not even like we learn anything fundamentally new or different about him. I would have preferred sticking with Linus, who had his own charms, and a sense that he might not be able to bring magic to the situation, but he was gonna try do what was right with everything else he had available.

On the same sugary vein, this book then gets a Deus-ex-Machina ending. They do work to try setup Zoe’s power throughout the book. But the fact is, it’s obviously a retcon from the first book. Zoe is a key character, but the main characters are Linus and Arthur, and the solution had to come from them for it to feel deserved. Or even the family as a whole. But this ta-da I’m a powerful fairy queen and I’m going to make a private place for magical families, doesn’t work.

What thematically did this solve?

Actually, I think that’s the problem with this story, it was trying to slap a fantasy ending on a book that is actually about systematic social problems. On the surface it looks cosy – we will all disappear to the magical safe place – but underlying it is the pure despair of a community who no longer believes the system can be fixed. Man, no wonder I hated it.

Thematic Mismatch

But the biggest problem with this book is the political agenda.

Obviously, books and authors can have agendas. The problem is that the agenda felt separate from the story, it lay like a film over the top of the tale. The author’s voice drowning out the characters. I hate being preached at in books.

You saw it most with the antagonists, who are so illogically evil they come across as caricatures. Like I found myself often thinking, but nobody in her position would do that in this setting. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m applying before-times thinking. Maybe other readers saw in this behaviour a perfect resemblance of our current lives and the lunatics in power. But to me, the antagonists just felt dumb. Don’t give me over the top villainy. Give me villains who win by playing the system against you. Who win because you can’t possibly fight the system. That to my mind is the real villainy of our times.

It is painfully obvious before you get to Klune’s manifesto who Rowder is supposed to be. But what was the messaging here? Are people like Rowder really the problem? And what resolution does this book offer for the underlying problem she is symptomatic of? Somehow the author set out to – I don’t know, discredit her? Show her beliefs to be false? Show readers people like her dont win? Actually I really don’t know what message this book was supposed to convey.

All I can say is that the story fails to convey it. Which makes me wonder if this was the right vehicle for this agenda? Were these the right characters, in the right setting? Was the author asking the right question? Or was he simply trying to tell us what he thinks is the right answer?

Rabbit Holes

It was also one of those strange coincidences, when I got to the end and found Klune’s manifesto about wanting to be the ‘anti-JK Rowling’

–that bloody woman is laughing all the way to the bank –

Because just days before I had been to a lunch and connected with someone who is also a big HP fan. She was cackling over her wireless candles hanging over the dining table. I absolutely loved it. And we talked briefly about the controversy of Rowling’s politics. It was a moment of feeling like I wasn’t the only one feeling conflicted about this person and her body of work.

And I guess that is what infuriates me about this topic. When people take the sort of stance Klune does, when they take on a certain tone in engaging with the ‘discussion’ – it’s ever actually a discussion. Then it leaves people like me feeling isolated and wrong. Like my viewpoint is wrong. And that it makes me a bad person not to share their viewpoint. It leaves me feeling subtly attacked and judged. How can I possibly think the way I do? How can I possibly justify my beliefs or her actions? None of those are feelings I want to get out of my fiction reading.

I don’t want to get into a debate about Rowling’s views or justify my own opinions. Rather, I want to think about what it means to others when you make complex problems simple. When you take the stance that there is moral rightness on only one side of the scale. When you deny people the right to occupy the middle places. When you deny the complexity that is human feelings and ideas.

I can both hate what Rowling says, and love her books. And you don’t have the right to tell me I have to choose. You don’t get to tell me I’m wrong when I have put a great deal of thought into my stance. Or when I struggle to articulate why I don’t feel comfortable occupying the same stance that you do.

You are entitled to want to fight, to take up a stance. That is admirable. The world needs more of you. But you don’t get to tell me that I have to be fighting, and you don’t get to tell me what side I should be on.

Also just to note, this is particularly infuriating when you are on the same side of the scale, so that the actual critique is not what your beliefs are, but that you are not fanatical enough (or performative enough) in them.

That kind of thinking, my friends is, how we found ourselves living in Interesting Times.

Maybe we should stop trying to fall into the same rabbit holes over and over?