GLASS SOUP

I was leery about picking up this latest novel by Jonathan Carroll, as I wasn't overly excited by his previous novel (and the first part of this story), White Apples. That novel had some interesting ideas but was presented in a very frustrating way that it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Reviews for the new novel were pretty positive, however, so I asked for the book for Christmas. Now that present has become my third book for the year.

The story of these two novels concerns the unborn child of Vincent Ettrich and Isabelle Neukor. His name is Anjo. He is very important in the battle between Order and Chaos (or Chaos and how God really works, as is explained in the new book). This half of the story has the agents of Chaos trying to get Isabelle to willingly cross into Death (which she can go to after she rescued Vincent from his own death in the previous book) and what happens when they accomplish their goal. That's it, really.

Carroll tells his tale with a very odd structure - almost all of it is told in flashback, whether to things that happened before events in the first book or to things that just took place within the context of this novel. He will start a new section with a few lines to set up what has happened and will then take many pages to fill in the gap from the previous section. Why not just tell some things in sequential order? It just seems a very roundabout way to do things, though I suppose it somewhat fits the action of the book if you can call it that. Much of the book is Vincent or Isabelle or someone else figuring things out.

That said, there are some interesting ideas about what happens when we die and other thoughts along those philsophical lines. Carroll also dots the book with wonderful images and he is always readable, even if you're not sure what is going on.

I liked this book fairly well and it certainly helped the previous book make sense in retrospect (even with a three year gap between readings). But if you're looking to read Carroll for the first time, I'd suggest trying one of his standalone books like The Wooden Sea.