City of Dreaming Books - Moers

 

It is with considerable trepidation that I must report to you, Dear Reader, on a subject of considerable interest to us both. One in which I must take the less fortunate role of literary critic and you the enviable position of connoisseur of exquisite literature. A great master of the quill has returned from the deepest catacombs of Zamonia to write of his miserable and horrid adventures beneath the city of Bookholm, the so called "City of Dreaming Books". A word of warning comes early, proceed if you dare.

In this epic tale, we, both reader and writer, are beckoned into the pages of a world filled with the depravities of societies addictions. We will recognize the city for its many coffee shops, its diversity of culture, and of course, its book stores which are too numerous to count. We will not recognize the mysterious forces pushing us forward, pushing us to turn each page, as we ourselves join in a grand quest to discover the city's greatest addiction. We will not recognize the deepest and darkest of the catacombs we will encounter as we consume the drug in its purest form--its written form, until it is too late. It is the drug of William Shakespeare, of Leo Tolstoy, of Herman Melville, and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe. We are powerless in its grip.

Our narrator also finds us ill equipped for a journey that spans centuries of writing including most genres with a sprinkle of the fantastical, the subterranean, and the extra-terrestrial as well. Our master teaches us the most difficult tricks of the literary craft as well as the more human tricks of treachery and deceit. Our skin will crawl as we venture deeper into the blackest and most gruesome areas of our mind, searching for the words to describe our fear, but which the master has already defined for us so well. We feel our hearts race as we whip endlessly on a rollercoaster though a labyrinth of time, searching for a way out, and a meaning behind it all. In a place where books dream, shadows cry, and the most frightening of creatures become our friends we learn how to channel the mysterious energy within us. Will we fight through this darkness until we find our own energy to climb back towards the civilization of great literature, or will we be hurled endlessly back into the abyss of despair and crappy writing? This, oddly, is where our story begins.

Walter Moers has created a tremendous fantasyland for all book lovers to call home, Bookholm, "The City of Dreaming Books". Read this story, you will not be disappointed, and you will become a better writer.