That sentence was all it took for me to be drawn in and enthralled by The Last Magician by Janette Turner Hospital.It didn’t just resonate with me, but near as dammit pulled my still-beating heart from my chest, shook it and said THIS, this is what you know. Read it, hold it, cherish it and let the words touch your heart.This book I picked up at a market in Camden. It jumped into my hand under the beady eyes of a bohemian trader and said “read me”. What choice did I have? I was compelled.
Harry Potter is just a book. This is not just a book. This is not JUST an anything. It’s exceptional. If you can look no further than one action to another, all you might see is the day to day lives of those on the fringes of Australian society, but if that is all you can see then the magic and wonder of this book will have entirely passed you by. It’s a book of discovery, of remembering, of forgetting but most of all it’s a book about seeing.
It’s a story about tragedy and how history reforms in the memories and actions of those of us who live on, and however we live that every moment we face can be irrevocably changed in the light of one fleeting, frozen moment in time. It’s about the way we’re woven together in the strangest of ways. It delights in showing us how our perceptions are altered forever after.
SEE, it whispers to me. See the past, see the future and see the possibilities. Nothing is ever exact. All it takes is a shift of perspective, some light and shadow and what was one things can become another. It shows us life as a fluid stream of mutating possibilities, that life and art and are trickery and real, and just because it’s one thing doesn’t mean it can’t be both.
She leaves so much open, for you to interpet yourself. Silence becons, she says, it entices. It does and that too is part of the magic. She weaves you into her story and it can’t become without your participation. It’s your interpretation, your memories and your own emotions that are pulled into the mix, that you remember and feel in place of the characters. That’s one of the joys of this book. It’s not a constant or an escape, it’s an evolution. It’s never the same book twice because you’re never the same person each time you read it. Subtle nuances that reflect the changes in your life suddenly bring to life a new part of the book that you didn’t find before.
It’s a story that is reflective of life. There is no definitive pathway through it, rather it wanders and meanders and upon occasion gets lost on the way, and rather than detracting from it, it’s that journey that makes it utterly and absolutely real. I’ve heard it said that it’s not an easy read, although I would disagree, but then it suits me, and it fits. This story and I understand each other. We are literary kindred spirits.
