PART ONE: Spoiler-Free
Lately I've been thinking about objectivity and what I want to do as a blogger. Am I really a reviewer? Sort of, but there are so many of those, and I've always been more interested in my personal engagement and other musings that go beyond the actual "good or bad?" content of the books. Sure, there are some things I mostly want to read to review because I'm curious about them in the critical sense, but I do generally prefer to mostly read books I think I'm going to like.
This would be one of those books.
I read The Book Thief over a year ago and I loved it, but I was not entirely sure if I would be interested in I Am the Messenger. However, after becoming really curious based on the rave reviews and mysterious plot description, and I did really love it. It's a mixture of feel-good with everyday sadness and injustice. Plus, it starts with an amusingly ill-executed bank robbery.
I Am the Messenger follows Ed Kennedy, a 19-year-old cab driver who is going nowhere in life when he receives a playing card in the mail with three addresses on it. At each of these he finds ordinary people in need of help, and goes about helping them (or hurting, if need be) with occasional interventions from whoever is orchestrating this scheme. Similar events occur with the other three cards (the remaining aces of the deck), with the final card directing him to discover more about his close friends.
This sounds light-hearted and formulaic, but it actually wasn't so simple. I don't want to give too much away, but each card and each story is a little bit different. At first it felt like a Ray Bradbury short story collection, visiting several different people of this town with very different lives with an almost mystical quality. (I mean, what really reminded me of Bradbury was the old woman because it was for me reminiscent of a story in Dandelion Wine.) But these characters do come back. Furthermore, many of the people have sad, helpless stories that can never be fully fixed, and there are some terrifying moments.
I loved I Am the Messenger for its magic. It's more than just the message of "even an ordinary person can help people out"--although that is a powerful message. But the novel is essentially about how there are stories living all around us and much too often, we don't realize that. I think that's part of why I like stories like these so much, because it's like when I discover something small and interesting about my friends or watch someone vlogging or read about lives different from my own. There's a whole world out there and sometimes we only see a small slice of it if we don't look. Even Ed did not realize so many things about his best friends.
A note: Unlike The Book Thief, I think this may have been specifically marketed as YA originally (in Australia), Still, as the main character is 19 and living on his own, it stretches that category, and plus Zusak doesn't really talk down to the audience. In other words, if you're not into YA, I'd still check it out!
PART TWO: Contains Spoilers (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)
So, inevitably I must discuss the ending, which is responsible for perhaps the quickest change of emotion I have ever had when reading a book.
As you know if you are reading this, there is an unnamed man who reveals that it was in fact him who orchestrated this scheme, rather than Ed's father before his death in the effort to prevent Ed from becoming like him. The latter did make quite a bit of sense, but this man's explanation?
"I came to this town a year ago, Ed.... Yeah, it was about a year ago, and I saw your father buried. I saw you and your card games and your dog and your ma. I just kept coming back, watching, the same way you did at all those addresses... I killed your father, Ed. I organized the bungled bank robbery for a time when you were there. I instructed that man to brutalize his wife. I made Daryl and Keith do all those things to you, and your mate who took you to the stones... I did it all to you. I made you a less-than-competent taxi driver and got you do all those things when you thought you couldn't. And why? I did it because you are the epitome of ordinariness, Ed. And if a guy like you can stand up and do what you did for all those people, well, maybe everyone can..."
This made me quite angry, honestly. Not only is it highly improbably and there are ethical dilemmas but it just didn't seem to be worth it. Killing and hurting people just to prove a point? However, that was followed up by this:
"Keep living, Ed.... It's only the pages that stop here."
...
He's written about this, I'm sure, the bastard. All of it.
As he walks up the street he pulls a small notebook from his pocket and writes a few things down.
It makes me think that maybe I should write about all this myself. After all, I'm the one who did all the work.
I'd start with the bank robbery.
Something like, "The gunman is useless."
The odds are, however, that he's beaten me to it. It'll be his name on the cover of all these words, not mine.
"The gunman is useless" is, of course, the first line of I Am the Messenger. It would be easy to call this a cheap cop-out where it turns out that it's Zusak (or "an author") all along, but that isn't any fun, is it?
Now, I'm pretty sure the overall point was supposed to be that despite the information that it was orchestrated from the beginning, what Ed did was not any less meaningful. And that's a good point; surely what we read still has impact despite being fictional. But what I find fascinating about this reveal is some of the other questions it raises. Should we view Ed and the others as real people, or as characters tailored to a specific story? Do we really want to orchestrate the world around us to become more like a story? Should we? Does the author have some sort of ethical responsibility?
I'm still thinking about it, actually, which is why this review is so late. Regardless, I Am the Messenger was a delight.
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