A review by mat_tobin
The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by Eugene Yelchin, M.T. Anderson
4.0
If ever there was a book that used satire and the unreliable narrator with a deft, dry touch whilst still wholly appealing to children then this is that book. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge might be seen as the disgruntled older pubescent sibling of Zelnick’s wriiten narrative/wordless format but it is also far sharper, clever and deeply political for being so.
Anderson and Yelchin’s world is one of goblins and elves who have spent much of their past at war with each other. But the elves now seek to renew their peace and send across the borders an elfin historian, Brangwain Spurge, with a gift for the goblins. Meanwhile, at the other end, Werfel, the goblin archivist, has been tasked with the job of entertaining his esteemed guest and giving him a tour of his city before the gift can be handed over to their supreme ruler: Ghogh – a nebulous, black creature from a wholly different dimension.
But all is not what it seems in this story for the elf’s mission is not quite honest and both his world and his hosts is being cunningly manipulated by outside forces. Can Brangwain see past his prejudices and acknowledge the greater truth before it is all too late?
A fantasy that is, perhaps, more real than the fake news we encounter daily today and certainly a satire on all political skewing of ‘outsiders’ and ‘others’, what Anderson offers in words and Yelchin in his Boschesque illustrations is a story from two different perspectives. Whose narrative can be trusted is another matter altogether but by the end of it, the reader will doubtless be in a place where they have the sense to question the propagandist images in their own world and reconsider what the truth is in their own lives.
Whatever the impact of the book on the reader, Anderson and Yelchin make for a wonderful partnership and beyond its ideological ramifications, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge is very, very funny.
Anderson and Yelchin’s world is one of goblins and elves who have spent much of their past at war with each other. But the elves now seek to renew their peace and send across the borders an elfin historian, Brangwain Spurge, with a gift for the goblins. Meanwhile, at the other end, Werfel, the goblin archivist, has been tasked with the job of entertaining his esteemed guest and giving him a tour of his city before the gift can be handed over to their supreme ruler: Ghogh – a nebulous, black creature from a wholly different dimension.
But all is not what it seems in this story for the elf’s mission is not quite honest and both his world and his hosts is being cunningly manipulated by outside forces. Can Brangwain see past his prejudices and acknowledge the greater truth before it is all too late?
A fantasy that is, perhaps, more real than the fake news we encounter daily today and certainly a satire on all political skewing of ‘outsiders’ and ‘others’, what Anderson offers in words and Yelchin in his Boschesque illustrations is a story from two different perspectives. Whose narrative can be trusted is another matter altogether but by the end of it, the reader will doubtless be in a place where they have the sense to question the propagandist images in their own world and reconsider what the truth is in their own lives.
Whatever the impact of the book on the reader, Anderson and Yelchin make for a wonderful partnership and beyond its ideological ramifications, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge is very, very funny.