The Unwritten: Inside Man

To start with, yes, I will be reading more of The Unwritten. It is about literature on every level: in plot, in theme, in voice, and I’m sure more ways that I haven’t thought of yet, and by gum, I don’t have this degree in English Literature for nothing. It’s really smart, really convoluted, and I expect to know more things at the end than I knew at the beginning, about the psychology of readers and reading as much as about the creation and function of stories.

As for Inside Man, aside from being obviously good enough to win me over, I can say a few things I suppose. In addition to following Tommy Taylor into prison (for a crime he didn’t commit!, no less) and into Nazi Germany, it explores the psychological impact of stories. On children and adults. On the stories themselves. On (at, okay, a more metaphysical level) the very earth upon which they occur. And then, after reading five issues’ worth of storyline that seems like it was made specifically to accommodate my personal interests, it’s capped off with a cautionary allegory set in Carey’s parody of the Hundred Acre Woods. So it may be fair to say that the closer your (non-horror, non-cult-classic) tastes match mine, the more you will like this series.

But man, there sure is a lot of foreign language in it, enough that I end up not trying to translate it. (This complaint is probably properly directed at me, not the book.)

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