Another artistic work from Danielewski. Harder to follow at first than House of Leaves, since it's depending on colors to identify different speakers, but still interesting. The artwork really is what moves the book from a 3 1/2 star to a 4 for me. ( )

Danielewski has a knack of presenting books that, with their odd layouts, inventive vocabulary, and poetic descriptions, lead the reader to question what is going on or how it should be read. I was a little confused by this one at the beginning - the story is told by five narrators that continuously interupt each other, and each narrator is represented by a different color of quotation marks.

Just like in House of Leaves, this is a story within a story within a story. Five narrators describe a birthday/Halloween party where a Storyteller presents his tale, about his quest to find a weapon, to five young orphans.

The Fifty Year Sword is short, but it demands many readings. This was just my first pass... more will certainly follow.

Something to keep in mind: You're not reading Danielewski for plot so much as for the experience. The plot will follow in time.

This is a particularly interesting interview MZD did for the book...
http://www.the-ledge.com/HTML/convers... ( )