Silverlock

by John Myers Myers, John N. Myer, Pam Fremon

Book Overview

Join an unlikely hero as he watches Moby-Dick sink the Pequod, dodges cannibals on Robinson Crusoe's island, raises a glass with Beowulf, and literally goes to Hell and back. This rollicking adventure... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441766714
• ISBN13: 9780441766710
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 516 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I invoke the Commonwealth!

_This is truly a book for book lovers. It starts with a middle-aged Chicagoan with a degree in Business Administration and a life that that has ceased to hold any meaning or charm for him. He boards a freighter as a passenger in order to try to put a little interest and excitement in his life. Well, he finds it. The freighter is shipwrecked after several days of running before a storm and the main character, Silverlock, finds himself cast adrift without a life boat. As he says- if he had cared to live, he would have died. As it is however, he doesn't struggle and exhaust himself- he merely surrenders himself to his fate and the currents. Fate soon finds him.... _What Silverlock finds is the Commonwealth. This is a place where all the great stories from myth, legend, and literature actually exist, somehow, side by side. This requires a suspension of belief, but given the excellent story telling that isn't too difficult. That seems to be what the Commonwealth is all about- it is the Commonwealth of story telling, or imagination. _It is more than just a survey of great characters and stories, however. Silverlock comes across as pretty unsympathetic at the beginning, but through experience and suffering in his travels from east to west he grows immeasurably in character. Perhaps the Commonwealth is a mask for purgatory, where lost souls are given a second chance at growth and redemption. In any case it is more heaven than purgatory for the reader. _Save this book for special quiet times when your spirit needs a recharge. I know that I do.

The hard-to-find classic...

Okay, this book has 30-odd reviews, all of the with five stars, and some with titles like "the best book ever written". What's up with that? Well... if you are one of the people unlucky enough not to know A. Clarence Shandon, aka Silverlock, then scroll back up and add this book to your cart now. I can tell you all about this book (as anyone's review will do), but it'll just come off as hyperbole. I mean: reference hunting? What's fun about that? Pilgrim's Progress? Wasn't that one of those tedious books you read in high school (and hated)?Okay, it sounds boring or tedious or somehow suspect, but this book will make your cheek muscles hurt from the silly grin you'll wear while reading it. The plot exists in part to hang all of these delightful songs (yes, songs), characters, rimshots, and, well, yes, references off of. But it never slows down or gets tedious at all. You'll find yourself merrily zipping along right through it. It is hard to find because it comes and goes from print--this book's the size of a Michener novel--and most people get this white-knuckled grip on their second or third copy (the first ones always having been loaned out and NEVER returned). This book is LOVED, and if you don't know about it you should (again) scroll up and purchase it now... because......like the Hippocrene spring at the end of the book, I can tell you all about it, but you'll never *really* understand until you've sipped from its waters.

Literature as Adventure and Life as a Story

This book is half Pilgrim's Progress, half Divine Comedy, half outright allegory and complete fun. A. Clarence Shandon, the Silverlock of the title, is not a very nice person as the story opens. Shipwrecked, he is saved by Widsith Amerigin Demodocus Taliesin Golias, who is more than a bard, he is a Maker. And from the moment he meets Golias, Silverlock falls into stories, one after another. He lands on the great island of the Commonwealth, which at one level is the Commonwealth of letters, literature, stories. And on another is simply a grand romp through the great stories of our culture.For Silverlock, who is as ignorant of literature as a fish, it's initially simply something that happens to him. He is, in Golias's kind phrase, "Not well informed." Nor are we. Whether it's hanging out with Robin Hood, wandering into the scenes of Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream, or quaffing mead with Beowulf, or even his own quests; it's initially all the same. But gradually the stories he lives and the stories he hears, and Golias's own example, transform him into a better person.I could tell you that "Silverlock" is an allegory, that Myers is telling you that literature has the power to transform, and make a person better, and that life without literature is not worth living. But that's like saying "Hamlet" is a story about a depressed prince. Saying this book is an allegory is implying its cod liver oil. It's not. This book is masterful as pure, sweet entertainment; the encounter with Izaak Walton and a dozen others is amusing even if you have never heard of any of them. Sure, what makes the book even more fun is trying to recognize the characters and situations Silverlock encounters. Some are easy: Captain Ahab and the Great White Whale; Circe from "Odysseus;" drifting down a river on Huck Finn's raft. Others are much harder. But that's a game to play afterwards. There's no time when you are wrapped up in the story itself.Myers' point is that literature is transforming. And this book will transform you. You will have great fun reading it - it's a ripping good story - but there's a real danger that Silverlock's encounter with Bercilak will send you to read "Gawain and the Green Night," or that the visit to the Deiphobe will send you off to the enchantments of Greek myth, or that the hysterically funny encounter with the Dean of Knights Errant will make you finally read "Don Quixote." The dangers are real in the Commonwealth, and not the least of them is the danger of being transformed by the experience of reading this book.Understand that when Silverlock's guide, Golias, tells a story, or invents a poem in the course of this book, he is Making, he is creating new and wonderful characters that Silverlock or anyone else just might encounter as they wander through the Commonwealth. I promise you that John Myers Myers is himself a Maker. "Silverlock" is Making at its best.

I'D LIKE TO BUY AN ADJECTIVE

I say that because, well, I just can't think of a word to describe how I feel about this book. This book was written in 1949, but John Myers Myers writes SO WELL that you'd think it was written in the present-day if you didn't know any better. I constantly found myself devouring it in 100 page gulps. Unlike nearly all other fantasy novels that are serious, this fantasy novel is intentionally humourous. The main character, Silverlock, finds himself stranded on a strange continent called The Commonwealth. As he journeys with his friend Golias, he meets up with MANY familiar literary characters. The literary characters and references are scattered through the book, but John Myers Myers doesn't stick with any of them very long. That way they don't go stale or get too much attention. There are TONS of humorous situations and poems in this book that will make you perk right up. Tolkien may have been a good poet, but JMM was just as good and sometimes far better. After reading a flood of formula-fantasy, this book is very fresh and rewarding. It downright shocks me that so few people have commented on this book. Please, do yourself a favor and buy this book IMMEDIATELY.

Essential Fantasy

Although some of Myers Myers's writing is a bit weak, this romp through fantasy, myth, and folklore (using motifs borrowed from GULLIVER'S TRAVELS and ROBINSON CRUSOE), this book is perfect for the uninitiated and the serious student of SF, fantasy, postmodernism, Western Literature, folklore, and Creative Writing. Too bad the publisher is not printing it at the moment. It should be required reading in literary survey classes. Maybe a letter writing campaign would help get it back in print.