The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well now! This was something special. Even in translation, the English version was just plain charming, oddball, and mightily creative.

What I took to be a plainly YA novel quickly became something on par with a mix between Douglas Adams, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and even a little irreverent Monty Python.

It's all about the tall tales, the adventuresome fish stories, the swindles, the bullshit, and the lies. From the first "life" to the 13th, each a new profession or a stage of his upbringing, each tale becomes more far-fetched and delightful. As an adult, I particularly loved the lists of ideas, the lists of strange objects, the lists of strange studies, and even the lists of lists.

The rambling was always chuckle-worthy.

As I read this, it was like being given some nice tea with a plate of cookies to dip into my drink, only to find out that the plate never ran out of those little cookies and I just couldn't stop taking up another, dipping it in my tea, and drawing every last drop of flavor out of it.

The tea never grew cold, either.

I'm really looking forward to reading a lot more by this author.


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