Book Review

[kenjari]

Outside the Dog Museum
by Jonathan Carroll

I am so very glad to have discovered Carroll, because I enjoyed this novel immensely. The book is told from the point of view of the protagonist, Harry Radcliffe, a famed architect who is just recovered from a bout of lunacy and embarks on a commission to design a dog museum for the sultan of a fictional middle eastern nation. The story takes a lot of twists and turns and contains enough magical and metaphysical events to put the book into the category of fantasy or at least magical realism. Harry is often rather a jerk, but he's a basically good guy. His brash narration is full of wit and wonder, making Outside the Dog Museum a lot of fun to read. Yet this novel also has a lot of very important and striking things to say about the human urge to create. Carroll has the delightful gift of mixing the humorous and the profound, and combining fun with depth.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Huh. The name Harry Radcliffe sort of made my eyes cross, so I looked up the book and it totally and completely predates the Harry Potter phenom even in book form, so it's just a wacky coincidence.

Jonathan Carroll blog

[(Anonymous)]

Carroll also happens to write one of the great daily blogs on his website www.jonathancarroll.com Funny, profound, insightful-- it is everything that his novels are, only in small daily doses.

Mina