Undermajordomo Minor

This is a strange one for me. I loved [b:The Sisters Brothers|9850443|The Sisters Brothers|Patrick deWitt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1291999900s/9850443.jpg|14741473] so much that I ran out to buy this one without any idea of what it was about. I won't summarize, however the reader should approach this novel as a "Fairy Tale" of the Grimm type and admire the clever writing, all the while taking the storyline with a grain of salt.

There is brilliant dialogue that can also be infuriating, no true sense of time period or place, an ominous setting that feels bizarre rather than ominous, vague character descriptions, perhaps a war and a puppy - for whom I felt the most! Ifeel like I will be thinking about this book for a while, it takes some time to absorb and process what I have read! ( )

Enjoyable coming of age parable in a Gothic setting. Lucy was likeable character. The ballroom scene jarred, as it came from nowhere and left me having bizarre dreams, unwantedly. ( )

What a weird and bizarre book. It is a roller coaster ride! I enjoyed it for what it is. I'm okay with not having all the answers at the end. It's probably better that way. I do wonder what inspired the author to write this book. I'll need to do some searching on that. ( )

Totally unlike The Sisters Brothers, though the quirkiness is still there. Some great thoughts on identity and taking responsibility for one's own life (most of the characters just stay in their life regardless of how bored they are, but the protagonist has an instinct for survival and "progress"), and of course what it means to love. There's an element of magical realism and the tone of the book is akin to a fairytale -- Grimm's style. The writing style is amazing -- concise, terse, and captivating. I love it! There's one scene that comes out of left field and is so off-the-wall strange but told with such matter-of-factness that I wasn't sure I was reading it right, but I was. Where did it come from? Totally bizarre, but makes the book that much more memorable. don't read this one if you love The Sisters Brothers; read it if you like deWitt's writing style and quirkiness and want good literature. ( )

I'm not familiar with deWitt's earlier work, so can't make comparisons, but my general feeling about Undermajrdomo Minor is that it's strongly reminiscent of a Wes Anderson film with the same oddball characters, dry and strangely stilted dialogue and a plot that never makes a lot of sense. Some readers are going to love it, some will hate it, many will be tempted to say, "Buh? I don't get it."

A picaresque novel, it follows the adventures of Lucien "Lucy" Minor, a compulsive liar and coward, as he attempts to make his way in the world. He takes the job of Undermajordomo at the castle of Baron von Aux, a weird and forbidding place with strange rules such as, be in your room by ten at night, and always lock yourself in. Um, why? asks Lucy. And the answer is: because.

He soon finds out why when he meets the Baron, filthy and naked, eating a rat he's just killed barehanded, which pretty much ensures that Lucy will never forget to lock his door.

For all his faults, Lucy has a good deal of charm, and he makes friends fairly easily. To be honest, it's not difficult in the castle, or in the town which is surrounded by two armies that regularly battle on the outskirts. He makes friends with a pair of thieves, Memel and Mewe, and falls in love with Katja, Memel's daughter and Mewe's sister. It's his love for Katja which propels much of the last half of the novel, and sees him embarking on a new adventure by the end of the book.

I can't honestly say why I enjoyed the book, or even why I finished it. Every time I picked it up, I thought, "Do I really want to do this?" Obviously I did, in spite of what felt like a plot so thin you could see through it. But in the end it didn't matter. Like a Wes Anderson film, the parts proved to be far greater than their sum, and just as enticing, at least to me. The dialogue, hilariously stilted, (everyone speaks in the same voice) threw me out of the story repeatedly, and yet I enjoyed it. The characters, awful as they sometimes seemed, were still charming and funny. It's a dark, dryly funny story, violent, and weirdly sexual. ( )