Juvenile Silliness

Title: Sunlight and Shadow
Author: Cameron Dokey
Published: 2004
Pages: 184

Reading Time: January 3-January 4, 2010.

Plot Teaser:
Thus begins a tale of Mina, a girl-child born on the longest night of the darkest month of the year. When her father looked at her, all he saw was what he feared: By birth, by nature, she belonged to the Dark. So when Mina turned sixteen, her father took her away from shadow and brought her into sunlight. In retaliation, her mother lured a handsome prince into a deadly agreement: If he frees Mina, he can claim her as his bride. Now Mina and her prince must endure deadly trials - of love and fate and family - before they can truly live happily ever after...

How I Got It:
This was another book that I found in a four or five for a dollar pile at Barone's Books, in Stoney Creek, Ontario. I think it was some time in 2008, but I could be wrong. It is a re-imagining of Mozart's The Magic Flute, which I knew nothing about before reading this.

The Review:
Based on a Mozart opera called The Magic Flute, Cameron Dokey's re-imagining is effective young adult fiction with a touch of charm and whimsy. While the book is overly dramatic at times, which I suppose is the point, it is nonetheless entertaining largely as a result of Dokey's structural choices. If you enjoy light-hearted fantasy stories or fairy tales about princes and princesses, this book is a decent bet.

The basic premise is this: Mina is a child of both light and darkness, with her parents being the overseers of the day and the night. On her sixteenth birthday, some incredibly significant event is supposed to occur. Her father abducts his own daughter with the intention of marrying her to a man of his choosing; a long-time apprentice of his. Outside of this plot, the story jumps around to a few other kingdoms where events take place that eventually lead all of the main players to the same place. Oh, and all of them are guided by love and the desire to know their hearts and find their true loves. There are also some magic bells and a flute.

I do not want to spoil everything, but to be honest the story is a bit silly. There seems to be a lack of genuine motivation on the part of Mina's father, and one of his choices late in the book is simply not consistent with the motivations that are clearly visible up to that point. I will simply say he puts his own daughter in a dire situation with her new-found love, when his goal all along was to preserve Mina. To put her in a situation where she could literally die seems unreasonable and just plain stupid. Of course, everything plays out happily in the end, with the power of love trumping all other emotions or logic. People literally fall in love at first sight more than a few times in this book, which make it seem a little hokey. However, I cannot really blame the author for that since she had pre-existing material guiding her.

The most interesting thing about this book is its structure. Every chapter is told through the eyes of a different narrator, which is great if you read the book in large chunks at a time. You get to see the perspectives of the perceived villains as well as the heroes. This gives the book a neat balance and makes sure there is never really a dull moment. The only disappointing thing is that none of the characters really has a distinct voice in the novel, and the writing style generally remains the same for all of them, which is one of syruppy drama. For example:

"I felt a pain so sharp I feared my very bones would splinter and pierce my flesh. This was my father. All my life I had wanted him to know and to love me. The father whom, for all my life, I had wished to know and to love. If he had waited just a few more hours, who is to say what might have been possible between us? But he had not, and so I knew there could be nothing."

Everything is reactionary and laid bare to the point where reason simply does not exist. The only thing that differentiates the narrators is their motivations and locations in time and space. Still, it was nice of the author to attempt to jazz up the adventure in some way.

While I admit the story is charming and whimsical in the way it has no real basis in reality, it is these same traits that slightly distance the reader from the events. Yes, there is certainly humanity, and the first person approach of each chapter ensures a sense of engagement, but any serious reader will likely find themselves not caring much for what happens to these characters because they are in a world where anything is possible. There is never a sense that anything is going to go wrong, and the only real thing to look forward to is discovering who ends up with who. Again, this was originally an opera, so perhaps the point is not in the end results, but in the journey, which is itself an enjoyable one.

The Verdict:
If you have a young daughter and want to get her interested in reading, this might be a good choice. Everyone else will likely approach it with a half-smile for all its fuzzy charm amidst some very safe drama. Fans of The Magic Flute may wish to give this a go, as it does feature some changes in characters' depictions, while offering up a fresh way to re-tell the original tale.

3.5/5

Up Next:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.