The Lost Prince

[amoama]

This Review is sponsored by Surexit’s Lost Prince newsletter of incorrigibility.

I don’t know how I would have felt about the book if I hadn’t been extremely determined to enjoy it as my SOP is to be VERY SUSCEPTIBLE TO ENTHUSIASTIC RECCING. But I imagine I would have liked it anyway. I felt like I was reading some kind of brother book to The Little Princess which I liked a lot as a child.  

 Obviously this review could be summed up as RIDIC! BUT, ENJOYABLE!

 But here, have some roughly assembled thoughts:

 

The emphasis on storytelling, on getting swept up in the tale, was cool: The Squad wrapped up in The Rat’s schemes and battle plans, Marco in Loristan’s stories, The Rat in Marco’s retelling of those stories. Even when The Rat and Marco are on an adventure of their own, Marco relating Loristan’s stories still has more power over them. Again, very Little Princess but I like authors who appreciate the power of their craft.

 

What is it with FHB and missing mothers? I am sure there are essays I could read on this. And the romanticism of Fathers – here taken to the utmost extreme- My Dad is Secretly A King and He will Save his Kingdom and Reclaim His Throne WHILE being Peace Loving And Honourable. It felt important that the mother be not only absent but also almost completely unthought-of in order for the father to be so mystical and wondrous a being. The author frequently mentions the BOY-MIND and I kind of liked it for being on the edge of the story, even your own story, like Marco is. All the way through you kind of know the action is going on elsewhere, even when they’re on their BRINGING THE SIGN grand tour.  

 

BUT the relationship between Marco and Stefan was totally intriguing – especially the heartbreaking “I’m your father why would I ask you to do such risky things” moments. I’m a sucker I know. But it did pull out the tension of how non-childlike Marco had been treated and whether that was A Good Thing or not. The extent of Marco’s training was incredible because I read it as him deliberately blinkering himself so that he couldn’t see the truth staring him in the face, or wouldn’t, because he had been trained so completely to only know and think and believe what his father had drilled him in. The patience of the two boys – of such adventurous yet obedient spirits – to wait at the end and read no newspapers so that Lazarus could doctor them and give them the non-spoilery headlines stretched belief to the absolute max. What was Stefan’s plan? It’s like some kind of reality tv script where everyone has to wait for the cameras to get switched on before the big reveal can play out.  

 

Stefan’s adoption of The Rat also played out nicely and interestingly considering how The Rat’s feelings and views of Marco changed in relation to how he viewed his father. Which was also weird. The Rat wanted to be a servant? But he’s supposed to be the General! I loved all The Rat’s self-examination though. Especially his vitriol at the end towards the Landlady which showed he hadn’t quite subsumed all his old characteristics.

 

I was super drawn in by all the it’s a game but it isn’t stuff which, I mean, I wasn’t sure what it was pointing to exactly within the Great Game of colonialism but it seemed very deliberate all the same.  

 

Also troubling was the spiritual mantra that was touted by Stefan and Marco as their overarching belief system that they would bring to serve Samavia. I was very confused about all the religiosity going around in such a befuddled fashion. But I gamefully ignored it.  

 

Sad days for the Squad who, as far as we know, do not get to troop behind Marco and The Rat as they parade into Samavia to rapturous cheering. Mostly due to their condition of being actually lower class rather than Gentleman/Princes fallen upon hard times. It’s unlikely that King Stefan McPerfectson will forget them for long though. He will surely send The Rat back to find them once Samavia has need of them.

 

I don’t think I need to write about The Rat/Marco being a thing because FHB did that for me anyway. The bit I lost it on was,

“He said it only because he wanted to say something, to speak, as a reason for getting closer to him. He wanted to be near enough to touch him and feel that they were really together and that the whole thing was not a sort of magnificent dream from which he might awaken to find himself lying on his heap of rags in his corner of the room in Bone Court.”

BOYS.