Throwback Thursday: Bartimaeus Trilogy
[caption id=”attachment_6385" align=”alignleft” width=”202"]
Credit: Amazon.com/Bartimaeus[/caption]
Ah, the age-old tale of a boy and his demon facing down the world and overcoming everything life can throw at them. Intersperse a pinch of betrayal, a sprinkle of espionage, a few handfuls of sarcasm, and we end up with a classic dish passed down through the ages, right? Well, perhaps not in this case. With the crafting of the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Jonathan Stroud truly took some great strides in breaking the mould we normally expect in traditional storytelling. Throughout the series, composed of The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye, and Ptolemy’s Gate, Stroud successfully pulled me into his world and showed me just how truly creative (and hilarious) one can be with their writing. For me, these three books helped open my eyes to just what kind of author I would want to be if ever I had the honor of becoming one.
I first stumbled across the Bartimaeus Trilogy back in my middle school days. My school had a system in place called Accelerated Reading, or AR for short. Every two weeks we were responsible for reading a book from the AR list. The list, as I remember it, was quite extensive and broke itself down into various book levels. I had always been rather proficient at reading, and so my own reading level granted me access to most of that extensive list. For me, having such a broad selection of the literary world available was a bit overwhelming, especially considering the fact that I would be tested on my comprehension of the books that I chose.
Luckily for me, our AR system had some very useful filtering tools to aid us in choosing what stories would best fit us as readers. By that point in time, I had already devoured the Harry Potter series. I knew I wanted to stick with that genre, and so when I input my preferences of “Action,” “Adventure,” “Drama,” and “Fantasy” into that small little search field, a rather long list extended before me. Many of them, of course, piqued my interest and I would go on to read many of them in the following years. One title, however, struck me right from the get-go. The book was entitled The Amulet of Samarkand. A curious title; I had no idea who or what a “Samarkand” was or even how to pronounce it. These voids in my knowledge were enough to drive me to the bookshelves and investigate directly.
I found the book quickly enough, and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that it was part of a three-set trilogy. From Stephen King’s Dark Tower universe to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, I had a love of long, intricate, interconnected tales that pull their readers further and further into their realms. By that point, I was expecting great things indeed from Bartimaeus. I carried the book to a reading table and dove right in.
I’ll be completely honest here. My first impression of the book after reading the first page was to return it immediately to the shelf. Why, you ask? Was the storytelling flawed in some profound way? Was the writing style too simple or complex? Not at all; the problem did not lie within Stroud’s writing abilities, far from it. I instantly fell in love with the characters from the very beginning. I loved their depth, their individuality, their setting, everything. The problem existed within me; a problem that I imagine exists with many young adults around middle school age. You see, Stroud chose to utilize a writing technique that I had only ever seen used in textbooks before. He chose to utilize footnotes to a great extent throughout the entirety of the Bartimaeus Trilogy.
In my young, naïve mind, I associated footnotes only with textbooks or research papers. I had never before seen them used in a novel. Fortunately for me, my taking a chance and reading through the footnotes themselves negated that visceral gut reaction to put the book down. While the traditional plot of the story existed within the main paragraphs of the book, Stroud chose to include asides from the main character, the demon Bartimaeus, within the footnotes. They delved into Bartimaeus’ personal thoughts and machinations, his beautifully witty, intelligent, and sarcastic inner thoughts on the people and events surrounding him.
I soon found myself devouring the footnotes and wishing for more. I loved the effect that they had on the characterization of Bartimaeus; they allowed for something that traditional storytelling just would not have been able to achieve, or at least not so succinctly. The writing style so affected me that I was inspired to someday write my own story and emulate Jonathan Stroud’s style of characterization, something I still aspire to achieve even today.
In the end, I suppose the moral of my long-winded story is that you should never judge a book by its cover, or even by its first few pages. Don’t just skip over what you at first judge superfluous or a waste of time. Give every story that you come across a chance, because you never know what you may find hidden away within those pages or, more importantly, within yourself.
