Fishtale
By: Hans Bauer, Catherine Masciola / Narrated By: Adam Verner
Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
Too drawn out for kids; too boring for adults
Go on and look at the cover art for Fishtale. Go on, just view how completely and unutterably imaginative it all looks. Kinda makes ya think you’re in for a Moby Dick For Kids, doesn’t it? Well, if you thought Moby Dick was boring and drawn out, then yeah: It is kinda like it.
Fishtale was a choice for our little audiobook club, and we were VASTly disappointed with it. As a matter of fact, ‘twould appear Adam Verner’s narration had a LOT to do with our unease. For me? I kinda thought his interpretation of Nose, whom I deduced was Black, was even a trifle offensive. He just totally turned Nose into an over-the-top caricature of a young boy, and BLAH to that, I say! Then too, Verner just kinda sorta made all the children have grating voices. The main text was fine; the characters? Not so much.
So once we got past slamming Verner’s performance (With much vitriol, I might add, and I admit: We got kinda sorta carried away…), we got into the weaker parts of the writing.
Here’s the story: Four children team up to capture the fabled Ol’ One-Eye, a huMONgous catfish noted for eating EVERYthing. For Nose, he believes catching the beast’ll bring him fame and fortune; for Sawyer, it’ll save his mother’s life; for Truman, it’ll bring him fame as a musician (I know, I know. I don’t understand his logic either); for Elvira? Well, Elvira just has major pluck, and she will not be thwarted/she WILL join the boys, dammit!
They set off in the swamp, and they have many adventures. Many, many adventures. Soooo many adventures that, by gosh, I was DYING by the time we hit the end. Cuz it’s like this: NOTHING really happens despite the kids getting into all sorts of dire predicaments. See, we know how things’ll end up for our heroes. All will be hunky-dorry, all will be well. There will be cuts, contusions, abrasions, but there will be no major bloodshed. Things get verrrry boring for a person when said person knows there’s no real danger for the characters they’re trying to like.
That there are so MANY Danger Elements, I believe, will have younger listeners tuning out. That so MANY Danger Elements come to nothing, I believe, will have magic-seeking adults growing bored. Add to it all that Bauer and Masciola rely on the tired old ‘And it all took place in no time at all’ thing, and you’ve got a yawner of a book on your hands.
I must admit, however, that I did listen to Fishtale again to gather my thoughts for this review. And I didn’t find the narration so egregiously grating, and I didn’t find the veritable onslaught of adventures so annoying. I didn’t, in other words, haaaate it as much as I did the first time. But I still was able to note the writing flaws and the missed opportunities.
Sawyer and Elvira are fatherless, but at one point, when the brother and sister are separated (No, hold your horses: Sounds exciting, but nothing comes of it…), Sawyer somehow finds himself navigating a river in the jungle, seeing burned huts, seeing tired and bedraggled soldiers, seeing his father and getting to talk to him. I thought: FINALLY! Some depth to the book cuz somehow Sawyer is on a mystical river in Vietnam! I thought there’d be a parallel, there’d be words of wisdom, there’d be maybe a touch of magical realism!
Uhm, no. Turns out that dear dead Papa tipples out a few words of comfort and ends it with a: You’re on your own. And Sawyer doesn’t even tell his sister that he’s seen their father until the very end of the book. I mean, whaaa?!? What was THAT all about then? Talk about a missed opportunity!
So when all is said and done, this is just one big fish tale, with a grown Elvira relating aaaaall that happened to a cynical observer, and it’s all wrapped up neatly and nicely in the end. The observer, disbelieving at first, but open and awestruck by book’s end, is no longer cynical. All is well and right with the world.
And that, my friend, is soooo boring.
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