Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon

I recently finished a third reading of The Road, prompted in no small measure by an essay written by Michael Chabon in his new non-fiction book Maps and Legends. Chabon argues, rightfully so, that there ought to be no artificial distinction between literary fiction, by which he means serious fiction, and "genre fiction," by which he means mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, etc. He uses McCarthy and The Road to point out that serious writers of literature often write "genre fiction" and that the only difference is how such books are perceived by publishers (primarily), critics, librarians, and others whose job is to categorize. Chabon makes an excellent point. And to his point, I would add the following: writers of so-called "genre fiction" walk a more difficult path because their readers have higher expectations of conventions and rules and formulae. This is not to say that a sci-fi writer cannot break the conventions; it is merely to say that genre writers must prove they can walk the walk and talk the talk before their readers will let them get away with bending the rules. In true irony, writers of staid literary fiction walk an easier road because the conventions and formulae of literary fiction are so loosy-goosy that anything goes; and furthermore, to have any expectations for literary fiction is to restrict oneself as a reader, and that simply cannot happen. Or so we are meant to believe.

Chabon goes on to argue that writing is about entertainment, nothing more and nothing less. Therefore, artificial distinctions mean nothing when the only true criterion that exists is entertainment ability. I believe that Chabon is correct and that such dubious categorizations should be thrust aside to make way for the megalithic entity that is entertainment. (Having said that, I obviously don't support the dumbing down of cultural phenomena that seems to coincide with the centralization of entertainment, but that is another post.) We should read and judge and critique based on how well or poorly we are entertained. Chabon makes this argument partly because he admits that he writes to entertain more than anything else. And I suspect that this is true of the vast majority of writers as well. The implicit part of the argument is that "genre fiction" must be pretty darn good because of its popularity and because critics, thinking it an insult, refer to this form of storytelling as "mere entertainment" or some other coded phrase implying "genre" rather than "literary."

Many of the essays that follow in Maps and Legends are serious discussions and considerations of "genre literature" of one kind or another. I was drawn to Chabon's book because I notice a lack of serious discussion about the "genre" texts that are extremely entertaining and that I enjoy. I suspect that Chabon himself is guilty of the categorization trap. He starts off by mentioning McCarthy and The Road to lure literary elitists into the conversation; McCarthy has been considered for the majority of his career as a very serious writer of literary fiction. But Chabon quickly relabels McCarthy as a science-fiction writer based on the post-apocalyptic premise of The Road. By this point, hopefully, Chabon has convinced those literary fiction elitists that they need to broaden their perspective, and he then invites us all into conversations about entertaining reading. The main reason I love Maps and Legends is that Chabon makes it cool to talk about writers and texts that I enjoy and, yes, am entertained by. Chabon follows with essays on Sherlock Holmes and fan fiction, Philip Pullman's rethinking of Paradise Lost in the His Dark Materials Trilogy (which I reviewed here), the comic book industry and its perhaps fatal turn toward the adult audience, and comic great Will Eisner, among others. Maps and Legends talks about the stuff that I read and that my friends read, never mind the fact that these friends of mine aren't friends with each other, that they live thousands of miles and in some cases whole oceans apart, and that the main thing that unites us all is our love of comics or mysteries or sci-fi books; in short, we are bound together because we are entertained together. And those doing the entertaining should not be degraded because they choose to entertain via "genre."

Maps and Legends is a wonderful collection of essays on a wide variety of literature. Included are a few in which Chabon discusses his own motivations, fears, and loves. The proceeds of the book go to support 826 National, a national nonprofit that supports youth writing centers in seven US cities. I highly encourage folks to buy and read this book.

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Addendum:

Taking Chabon's words to heart, I decided on a little reading experiment. With a twist. I supposed that Chabon wanted folks who limited their reading to "literary" fiction to branch out and perhaps break down their presuppositions about "genre" fiction. While I am a great lover of literary fiction, I consider myself more of a genre reader. I love Herman Hesse and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I probably spend more time reading mysteries, science-fiction, and comic books than I do reading serious literary fiction. So, I thought it high time that I broaden my own presuppositions about the literary writers. But that wasn't enough -- I wanted to find books by literary types who took a chance and jumped into the genre field. (This way I'd get the best of both worlds.) I wanted to find more writers like McCarthy, writers who took the chance to transcend the artificial categorizations of fiction. I found three books that meet my criteria and will read and review them throughout the summer months. My short list is as follows:

-Phillip Roth, The Plot Against America. Reason: This book uses the sci-fi convention of alternate-history (sometimes called alternate universe) to rethink the history of the USA if pro-fascist Charles Lindbergh had run against and defeated Franklin Roosevelt in 1940's. Roth, of course, is probably one of the most famous "literary" American writers still alive. He's taught all over college curriculums and won all sorts of serious "literary" fiction awards.

-Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Reason: Since Chabon made the argument that provoked my experiment in the first place, I thought I'd give his alternate-history / detective story a chance. There are a couple of things going at once in this book. One: the story takes place in Sitka, Alaska, in the modern age. Chabon's Sitka was settled by European Jews fleeing the Nazis in the 30's and 40's. Sitka is given temporarily to the Jews for 60 years, but when the time is up the district will undergo reversion. The story takes place more or less right now; Reversion is fast approaching. Two: the story's protagonist is Meyer Landsman, a hard-boiled detective in the Chandler/Hammet mold. There is a murder that Landsman must solve. And he'll get pummeled once or twice in the ensuing drama. In addition, Chabon has a "literary" reputation, despite the fact this his last few publications have been strictly "genre" (see my review of Gentlemen of the Road).

-Audrey Niffinegger, The Time-Traveler's Wife. Reason: My partner recently finished this book and loved it. She hates "genre." Rather ironically (for my partner and I that is) Chabon writes about this book as another example of book that crosses/transcends the categorical distinctions of "literary" and "genre" fiction. He considers it sci-fi, and it does have a rather sci-fi plot from what I read of the back cover.

I'll let you know how the experiment goes.

Reading as a Father, Reading as a Fan: McCarthy's The Road Revisited

In a previous discussion of The Road, I talked about the timing of reading the novel. My first reading was before I became a father. Because of this, I connected closely with the little boy. Papa became a surrogate for my own father. And in this way I took the horrific journey that McCarthy had set out for his characters. (Since I've convinced, cajoled, and bribed everyone I know into at least attempting to read this book, I will now progress to discuss important plot points. Just so you know.) In the end, when the father died, and the little boy sat by his corpse in the woods for several days and wept, I too wept. I cried on my couch as I ceremoniously turned the final pages in the dark hours of the late night or the early morning, imagining how I someday will have to deal with my own father's death. I wondered, and still do, if I've learned enough, if I can carry the fire that drives my own family.

A completely different reading opened itself to me after my daughter was born. I finally understood the deep commitment to responsibility that drives the father in the book. All of his actions took on a clarified meaning. While I never questioned the moment when he shot a potential cannibal who grabbed his son, now I started to question why he didn't shoot him sooner. The words, the gestures, and the caresses now meant something completely different. In this most recent reading, I am no longer the passive recipient of such actions, I am speaking, doing, holding myself. There is an urgency to how I read the book. I know the father is dying. While I knew that the first time I read the book, the immediacy of it never connected with my comprehension of the narrative. Now, every cough in the day, every night spent in unsleeping agony by the father hits me on an emotional level that I never experienced before. He is absolutely aware of the world in which he will leave his son. It is Hobbesian- nasty, brutish, and short. So he must protect him as long as possible and then hope against hope that he did enough. These are the same requirements for any parent, though I didn't know with the pit of my soul about this as I read the first time. Now I know.

The angelic and messianic perspective that the father holds for his son also became much more prominent in this reading. It is no coincidence that the boy's hair is an unruly mess of golden tangles or that the light tends to hit him just so. If it is true that the father and son are carrying the mysterious "fire" of goodness, then the boy is undoubtedly a messiah or an angel. And, the father, his protector, must in turn be ruthless and cold on occasion to ensure his survival. And if there is no one to spread the fire to, then the father's agony is all the more poignant because his actions ultimately amount to nothing and his son's existence is also futile.

While McCarthy is often considered a "serious" novelist (see post on Chabon's Maps and Legends), this book is very clearly in the science-fiction / fantasy style. McCarthy uses some of the techniques from this "genre" quite effectively. I think back to Tolkien's work and how the characters routinely found a safe haven that allowed them to collectively catch their breaths for the next part of their journey. These save havens were frequently semi-magical forest realms, peopled by the immortal elves, where time seemed to stand still. McCarthy's morbid twist is that anything combustible is already destroyed or burning as his duo walk the road, yet they too find safe-havens. The most notable is an underground bomb shelter, a leftover relic from the Cold War that unfortunately did its builders no good in the nuclear holocaust that presages the events in the book. The father and son find temporary sanctuary, though they, like the hobbits of Tolkien's Middle Earth, know that their journey has not ended and that despite the temptation, they too must continue. I've always enjoyed this technique and the various ways in which my favorite writers choose to employ it. There are few authors as morbid as McCarthy, and it was intriguing to see the way he would twist this genre device.

Finally, like many readers I believe that what makes a book good is that it endures. Each reading is new. Each reading presents new interpretations and imagery and connections. The Road is a dark and twisted book. In many ways it is on par with the horror works of Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe. It is also transcendent because it finds the common thread of humanity that connects us all - the fire it is called by the father and son - and builds on that thread, tenuous though the structure may be. Like the father and son, the book itself endures even though the world it depicts may not. I look forward to reading the book again in a few years to see what new discoveries await me.

Dying Inside

I sometimes read like a starving man. I don't always notice the details, but I know when I'm satiated, if I'm satiated. The voracious style, as I like to call it, can be problematic at times. For example, I am rereading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The book is dark. Really dark. I remembered the cannibalism, just not the quantity and the ubiquitousness. I remembered the theistic ruminations, just not their intensity. I am reading slower this time, being more methodical. I'm writing down the lines that jump out at me. (For example: "Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them." Crazy beautiful.) This particular rereading has the feel of the first time through. Perhaps its McCarthy. Perhaps its me.

I recently finished Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. I took it down quickly, perhaps too quickly. It was given to me by a close friend. I am hesitant to read books recommended by close friends. What if I don't like it? Worse, what if I think it's rubbish? How do I tell this to someone who treasures the book so much? Yes, book recommendations can be a tricky thing. Dying Inside has that tricky feel to it.

The protagonist is David Selig. He can read minds. And he is slowly losing that power. I found the premise both rich and personal. Who hasn't dreamed of the possibilities of mindreading at one time or another? Who hasn't thought, perhaps a little guiltily, that maybe someone is reading their mind? I have done both, mostly as a child, but there are paranoid times when still I wonder. Silverberg does a tremendous job of writing an interior monologue for a character who has/had the ability to pick up on the interior monologues of others. Selig basically invites the reader to do what he does all the time, namely to tease out the innermost details of what makes us who we are. And his inner self, like yours, mine, is convoluted, insecure, and just trying to make it from day to day.

The book is full of allusions to "literature," by which I mean the type of stuff that Harold Bloom would canonize if society just let him categorize to his elitist little heart's delight. I caught a lot of the allusions, though I couldn't tell if they were mentioned to move the narrative along or to name drop. Selig too is a voracious reader, and he peppers his interior monologues with the aforementioned connections. But the character, with his vast repository of classical knowledge, does little more than mope. He is an older, more bitter Holden Caulfield who has the ability to read minds but does little with the ability other than spy, gripe, and lament his own insecurity. I couldn't stand The Catcher in the Rye, and I had that same terrible feeling for a good portion of Dying Inside. Fortunately it was short, and the author concludes with a slightly more redeeming feeling about mankind.

The human condition is ultimately what all narratives are about. Some lament, some celebrate, some ruminate, some plain and simply are there for laughs. The redeeming feature of Dying Inside is that while it spends an inordinate amount of time lamenting the human condition, it is ultimately a celebration of those very characteristics that make us human, that make us beautiful, and that make us fragile. The name-dropping, which I feared at the outset as a sort of intellectual masturbation, may in fact be a celebration of intellectual and cultural pleasure. The rampant insecurities explored ad nauseum by Selig take on a slightly more salvific connotation when he makes it clear to the reader that his insecurities are the very things that unite, not separate, him from the society in which he struggles to live.

This book is surely not for everyone. Those with an interest in deeply existential narratives will enjoy it immensely. Those who may want a glimpse into the psyche of Holden Caulfield at a later age may find it helpful. It is not, however, a quick summer read, and for the most part it is not a "feel good story." But it is the human condition at its most redeeming.

Books are like lovers. You caress them gently. You hold them in the late hours cherishing their secrets. You choose them with care, hopefully, and speak their praises to others. You try to be discriminating in the ones you choose to spend time with because it feels horrible to get deeply into one with the notion that it will all be just a giant waste of time.

I am in between lovers right now. Or rather I should say I am testing the waters. A little from this one, a little from that, trying to find just the right dance partner. But each has something slightly different to choose from. This one is dark, intense, engaging. Perhaps a little too engaging for a summer fling, though. That one is older, a truly classic stunning beauty. But perhaps I want a little less experience and a little more rough around the edges, know what I mean? Maybe I want something superficial, a rebound book, if you will. I know it won't last, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun for a time.

Oh, the choices, the choices. I am enjoying my bachelorhood, knowing that there's no reason to rush into anything. There's no pressure. Just how it should be in the summer.

I've been off books for a couple weeks now and can't seem to figure out why. After Chabon, I polished off A Farewell to Arms which my junior/senior class was reading in school. I've been wondering if Hemingway is the cause of my literary doldrums. I've always loved the beautiful simplicity of The Old Man and Sea - I can see why it got him the Nobel. And I've heard amazing things about A Farewell to Arms. In fact, it's the only Hemingway I've managed to finish in the last decade; For Whom the Bells Tolls fell by the wayside twice and The Sun Also Rises never got off the runway.

So, I more or less enjoyed AFtA - the ending is just so damn brutal but beautiful at the same time, but I haven't gotten into anything since then. I'm reading a non-fiction book (yes, it does happen from time to time) about the Templer Knights. It started out brilliantly, but I've since lost interest (as happens with most non-fictioners). And I haven't felt anything about books since. And this lack of feeling has got me worried. I usually have an aching need to be reading something, to be living in someone else's world or just their head even if it's only for 20 minutes a day. I even have a Didius Falco mystery, my standby series for the last 3 years, sitting on the table ready to go at a moment's notice, yet I haven't so much as looked at the cover.

I went through my comics recently to see if I needed a change of milieu, so to speak, but I haven't really gotten into any of the oldies or any of the unreads yet either. What is wrong? Perhaps nothing is wrong and my mind just needs some sort of reading vacation, though I feel like this explanation is a bit of a stretch. If anyone is reading this and has any insights on the situation, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. Otherwise, I shall just go around blaming Ernest's overly-stoic depiction of manhood for a while, until I finally find something worth perusing or give up on literacy altogether.

Gentlemen of the Road

Michael Chabon manages to both amaze and annoy on a regular basis. Navigating his dense prose suggests something akin to Odysseus as he made his way past Skylla and Karybdis. Or perhaps the Sirens are a better example since they are enticing much in the way that Chabon's novels are. Among other things, he has taken on Sherlock Holmes, comic books, and professional writers and college, all of which are quite dear to my heart. And like the Sirens, he deftly manages to suck you in via temptation before you realize that he's secretly out to drown you. The man is the William Faulkner of the 21st century. Ernest Hemingway would punch him in the nose rather than buy him a drink. And yet, and yet, like those damnable Sirens, he is hard to resist.

I recently picked up Gentlemen of the Road, Chabon's slightly cynical homage to the adventure tales of authors like Alexandre Dumas and Sir Walter Scott. Like his predecessors, Chabon's story is episodic, each chapter is fairly self-contained and has a plot all its own. In fact, the novel was serialized in the New York Times Magazine before it was collected together and released in novel form (though I didn't know this when I picked the book up). He even got a comic artist to draw occasional pictures from the text in black and white. I particularly loved this touch since many of my earliest reads, including handed-down Big Little Books, used black and white sketches to compliment the narrative. In fact, I wish more books had pictures, especially for high school readers whose visualization skills seem to be weaker than previous generations.

But I digress. Gentlemen of the Road is a great action-adventure book, even if the prose is murkier than Mexico City on a summer day. Chabon's story focuses on two brilliant and inspired characters who thieve and connive their way through 9th century Khazaria (think of the region North of the Black and Caspian Seas). Yet a dethroned and predominantly annoying princeling manages to worm his way into their hearts and bring out the best of their morality and their derring-do. The characters - Amram and Zelikman - are a disneyfied version of Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. They roam their world with a deeply ironic morality that nonetheless includes frequent use of violence and occasionally drugs to keep things lively. Their horses have names, which aren't nearly as cool as the names and lineages of their weapons. Yet both are crucial as they navigate through marauding Vikings, a disenfranchised Moslem army, and various encounters with elephants. There's also a brothel that offers occasional respite, which no action-novel should ever be without - the brothel that is, though respite too is necessary. Not bad for a contemporary serialized novel. There's even a little redemption in the end. All in all, a highly recommended read from one of the finest if slightly loquacious authors of the last 20 years. [Just so you know: on one page I looked up no less than 6 unknown words, and I had to go to the internet for 3 of them.]

Good Idea, Creative Genius(es), Failed Final Product

The book you see above is the third book in a trilogy conceived by George Lucas and written by comic genius Christ Claremont. To start: George Lucas is a brilliant storyteller. He combines the best of world mythology and good old fashioned serial action/adventure. He has an amazing capacity to tell a yarn better than just anybody alive today. No, I'm not joking. He's that good.

Chris Claremont is several rungs lower on the creativity and brilliance ladders respectively, but he's still good. He's the guy behind the Uncanny X-Men, and his 15+ years on the comic are unparalleled. We get to watch Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart on the big screen as Logan and Professor X because of what Claremont did with the Uncanny title. The X-Men, Marvel's biggest moneymaker, is alive and well because Claremont took Stan Lee's team of heroes idea and ran a double marathon with it. I love comics. I think Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are brilliant, but I'm a comic fan because of Chris Claremont - 'nuff said.

The story in the book above is the continuation of the movie "Willow." George Lucas and Ron Howard made "Willow" in the 1988. It was a commercial flop, but it retains a cult-like following to this day. I watched the movie on cable as a 9 year old kid and loved it. "Willow" is probably the only reason I ever picked up "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." It was a great movie by kid standards. I would juggle my plastic sword like Madmartigan and fight imaginary Kael's all day long. Great stuff.

So you'd think that the book above and it's two predecessors would be full of brilliance that an imagination-starved adult like myself would feast upon. The story is average. The re-characterization by Claremont is impressive. But the writing is absolutely horrific. And that kills the books for me. I still recommend them to fans, but I use examples from the book to teach kids how not to write. It's not just the comma splices and the run-ons, which are annoying; rather, it's Claremont's attempt to novelize what he has conceived of as a comic. The gaps in the story are absurd. I can only attribute this to Claremont's long-standing ability to tell great stories utilizing both text and images. These books are built to utilize both texts and images too, but Claremont has no art to help him tell his story. So, he ends up rambling endlessly trying to describe in intimate detail what a good comic artist can do in a frame. And the books suffer. Claremont jumps from episode to episode in the novel as if he could rely on comicbook time and pacing; this destroys the narrative flow. And the books suffer.

Some of the most creative minds alive are writing in sci-fi/fantasy. The fans are knowledgable and demanding, more so than in other genres even. Given this, I have yet to meet a reader who has anything good to say about the Shadow War books. And that, in and of itself, is the most revealing criticism of all. It's a damn shame too, because George Lucas's idea is still good, Chris Claremont's additions are pretty good , but things just don't work out in the end.

The Road

The Road is a small, but powerful, stretch for Cormac McCarthy who tends to write about the brutality and savagery of the US borderlands much like Martin Scorcese writes about the mob on the East coast. The setting is a dysmal post-apocalyptic world in which a father and son walk down the road towards an imaginary better life.

On the road, they meet bandits, cannibals, and other unsavory characters. In all this, the father is trying to teach the son the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. The conflict comes from trying to teach morality in a world that is not immoral so much as it is amoral. We all know the central ethical question of Les Miserables - is it okay to punish one who commits a crime to feed a child? But in McCarthy's twisted world, people are food for others, so the question is no longer relevant. Instead, we are left to wonder: can there be an ultimate good in a primal state of nature? And if so, can good be learned by a child?

In their quest for survival, the father and son attempt to answer these questions. And in the journey of the book, McCarthy has written something eloquent, beautiful, and ultimately redeeming about mankind.

I first read this book before my child was born. I imagined myself as the son and my father as the father in the story. The book became for me an examination of my relationship with my father. I asked myself what he taught me and what I ultimately learned. A later reading, after my child was born, had me switching characters. I empathized more with the father on the second reading, and it made me consider my own role in shaping my child's life. In both cases, I had to wonder about the decisions I make in life, just as the characters are forced to endlessly examine their own choices.

The Falco books by Lindsey Davis

There are works of serious literary nature. Books like The Road most likely fall into this category. And then there are books like The Historian and Wicked which take themselves incredibly seriously and challenge notions of linearity, good and evil, and things like that. And then there are good ol' fashioned books like the Falco series that are just plain fun.

Marcus Didius Falco is a private detective. He lives in Rome. The time: 70AD. Like the movie A Knight's Tale, Lindsey Davis's books (of which there are 14 or 15 at this point) transcend the time and place in which they are set without losing any of the authenticity of a period piece. Davis writes a thoroughly modern, thoroughly British tale that just happens to take place 2,000 years ago in the heart of the Western world. Her main character is a deliciously cyncial Roman plebian with a heart of gold and a patrician girlfriend/eventual wife. Like most mysteries, the Falco books usually involve corpses, corruption, and a heavy dose of hard-boiled Dashiell Hammet prose. At the same time, Davis has done her historical homework and creates realistic, believable locales for the action. The majority of her characters are one dimensional, which makes for quick reading, yet the situations she comes up with for each book are rich in detail and engaging enough to drive the series.

The first book is called Silver Pigs. It's a bit rough at the start. It takes a while to get comfortable with Davis' prose and the narration of Falco. But after a few books, the characters take over and the series is brilliantly executed. I've recently read The Accused, which brings Falco back to Rome after two novels set in Britain. Davis deftly renders the corruption that led to the Empire and ultimately the downfall of Rome. These are quick reads that will give you an enjoyable weekend or week. If, however, you're in for something a bit more historical and a bit less tongue-in-cheek, check out Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series. He too has a Roman detective, though he's going more for the historical fiction label rather than the mystery label.

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman

This series drew my interest because of the Christmas release of the movie and because Pullman based the themes of these books off of Milton's Paradise Lost. Where Milton saw God as an ultimately good yet disinterested figure, Pullman envisions God (and the angels) as a malevolent force and religious institutions as ultimately destructive in their pursuit of policy and dogma.

Like CS Lewis, Pullman uses children as his primary agents in the quest for knowledge and adventure. Unlike Lewis, Pullman's underage protagonists retain their essential innocence pureness in spite of repeated attempts to lure them into an ideological stance. After reading these books, I was reminded of Polonius's advice to his son in Hamelet: This above all, to thine own self be true. Whereas the happy little tykes in Lewis's books all fall under the benevolent yet servant-like sway of Aslan, Lyra and Will follow their own path in this trilogy. They end up on one side in the battle between heaven and non-heaven, yet their path does not take them into a ruinous ideological position. They remain free in a sense that Satan never achieved in Paradise Lost.

Another delightful feature of these books is Pullman's ability to pull off the parallel universe cliche without killing his narrative. The parallel universe phenomenon has long ruled over the scie-fi/fantasy world, with varying degrees of success. The most infamous use might be the parallel universe in the first Star Trek series which featured an evil Spock. Pullman's parallel universe works for several reasons, the most notable of which is the replacement of human souls with animal daemons that exist independently of the human body yet inextricably with the human mind. These animals are the constant companions of every human and there are strict rules which govern their separate-yet-connected lives. Another feature of Pullman's parallel universe is a rigid class structure that has existed well into modern times. This allows Pullman to give his narrative an incredibly Victorian quality without all the baggage that such a social paradigm implies. Plus, there are witches and noble gypsy-like groups that give the book an imaginative dimension that has been lacking in most works of this type (Harry Potter excluded).

If you like Milton and writing that draws heavily from CS Lewis, JK Rowling, and even the Tolkien lineage, then this series will entertain you immensely. And in the end, it will probably get you to think about religious institutions and the freedom on the human soul whether you mean to or not.