A review by thecommonswings
The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll

4.0

If any book demands a reread almost immediately, it’s this. I fully suspect this is actually a five star book that I haven’t really begun to fully comprehend. It’s the most formally challenging Carroll book to utilise the stranger aspects of his fiction, almost as if he decided to write a huge rambling epic of a book and then deliberately chip off an end of it and have that as the novel. There’s a real sense of this being the tip of a stranger and wilder and considerably more epic novel that Carroll is determined not to give us. All the elements are there, and unless Carroll provides us with a late period belated sequel they all feel like strands disappearing into the void. Which is somehow maddening but also immensely freeing

It’s also Carroll’s funniest book. Subverting the buddy movie formula by getting yourself stuck with various different iterations of yourself at different ages is a glorious idea (I have always intended to do something similar and am glad I won’t be treading on already trodden paths done here), and Carroll mines it for comedy and pathos and so much more. It’s a really strange book and feels somehow the most elusive book he’s written but also puts the White Apple/ Glass Soup books into context. It also seeds their hero as a schoolmate of Frannie as well which I particularly enjoyed. I do love it when an author subtly brings together his universe