Frontier

Frontier

2008 • 470 pages

What a weird meandering abstract dream painting, of a town called Pebble Town at the foot of Snow Mountain. The novel follows several town characters, through dream-like scenes of mundanity and magical realism. The narrative follows dream logic, with plot strands suddenly stopping, characters appearing out of context.

It had a charming intriguing quality at the beginning, you can read it as some hypnotizing puzzle with a solution always out of reach, but I then tired of it in the second half. I rushed through the last chapters just to finish. And I am still left with my questions.

Does the levitating constantly-disappearing garden represent paradise, are the fleeing small dark animals souls, is everyone in purgatory, is everyone dead, where are we?!

November 7, 2020