Beautiful and filled with evocative images and ideas, to be sure. Yet, it felt discontinuous and almost generic—a kaleidoscopic look at an encyclopedia of fairy tales.
Some might call this symbolic, allegorical, whatever. I tend to reject reading things as such unless they explicitly lead the reader to it. I think that something this hodgepodgey can only be such as a mirror for what the reader brings to it. What is solid in the book was not as interesting to me as I would have liked.
As one of my good friend’s favorite books, I picked it up with excitement. Sadly, I wasn’t as affected by it as him.