I remember watching a movie and loving it.
I remember reading a book and crying over it.
The two acts were done a couple years apart. They were both brought about by this book I am talking about today: A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness.
Imagine me reading a book and then realizing all of a sudden, in the middle of it, that I have actually come across this story before—in a film I watched years ago.
Imagine that feeling, it’s as if you’ve come across a friend after years apart, you’d almost forgotten it, but then they came by again—and you remember everything.
In the simplest terms, this is the story of a boy, a tree, the boy’s mother and her disease.
People say they can’t bear being old. But this book opens up with another notion completely. “You’re only young once….”
“You’re only young once, they say, but doesn’t it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.”
-Hilary Mantel, An Experiment in Love
Imagine not being able to face your youth, your childhood, your age of springtime. Imagine being so tired.
The book opens with the sight of a nightmare, and a monster. The monster shows up in Conor’s house just after midnight. As all monsters do. Conor isn’t afraid of this monster, not of him, not yet, but the monster promises him on this: he will be afraid. He will be. It’s a scary thing to look forward to.
Blurb of A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness
Conor’s mum is dying. He’s going through the trauma of her battling cancer and the trauma of being so distant from his father that he doesn’t know who that man is at all. Then there’s also this bully Harry who looks weird and creepy because of all the strange looks he’s been giving Conor, as if he’s up to something.
To top it off, now, there’s this scary monster tree that talks. He’s like the bad wolf, except that he tells three stories to Conor that look simple to the eye but hold fascinating morals and ethical dilemmas. And they’re meant to teach him something.
Will Conor be able to learn his morals? Will the tree be any useful, or just wreck his life? Most important of all, will Conor be able to acknowledge that deep, haunting secret that’s buried somewhere in the corner of his mind?
This secret can put his emotional state, and the image you’d have created for him by reading the book—all in jeopardy.
The simplest way in which I could tell this story’s story would be—a lonely boy’s struggle with his mum’s cancer, the bullies in his school, and a monster who’s determined to make him admit the truth.
What truth, now? you may ask.
It’s the truth that he’s ashamed of. The truth that finally made me give up the pretense and start to sob towards the end of the book.
Let’s go back a little.
The monster in the form of a tree, tells Conor three stories.
Stories are wild creatures, the monster said. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?
These stories that the monster tells are so closely based on moral grounds that for a young listener such as Conor himself, these seem like some huge questions that need to be answered.
On top of that, they supposedly just tell what the world actually is.
Some questions don’t have answers, some people don’t get what they deserve (or get what they don’t deserve, depending on how you see it). Some people die for no reason, some people cry and no one gives a sh*t. That’s the way it works in the stories, and oftentimes, pessimistically enough, in the real world itself.
These stories may touch hugely upon themes of morality and justice, and right or wrong, but they don’t always have concrete moral lessons. They don’t always have conclusions that you’re willing to accept. As the monster says…
It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers’ daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You’d be surprised.
And the fact that a monster, of all, is narrating this story to Conor makes it all the more intriguing, because what views should a monster have so that we don’t immediately term him as a monster? And what did he do, or think, or say in the story that label him as such? And finally, what does a monster think of all this?
Moving on from the monster and his stories, let’s look at the bully of Conor’s school, Harry.
Harry presents all throughout the book a very interesting character, suspicious because at various points throughout the book, you have to work hard at figuring out what he’s thinking. He isn’t the typical middle school bully, you know.
He seem to be sporting his own mindset, his own motive. It makes me want to place Harry, weirdly enough, not at a character’s pedestal, but at an idea’s. Let’s look at Harry as an idea, a recurring theme that Patrick Ness touches upon whenever he makes an appearance. What does Harry represent? Conor’s fear? His willingness to fight his bullies, or any other monster, for that matter?
But turns out, obviously, Harry isn’t the biggest monster Conor is facing. It’s not even the monster tree that scares him with these horrifying tales.
The real, scariest monster that Conor has to face is the one inside himself. Conor will have to acknowledge this monster some day or the other. He’ll have to say the truth out loud.
A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness is just too powerful to just be confined to a middle-grade audience. I’m of the view that it’s meant for more, that when a monster calls we all have to answer.
We all have to face it.
Check out more book reviews:
The 1000 Year Old Boy by Ross Welford.
Or a complete middle-grade book recommendation post: Amazing Middle Grade Books You’re Going to Love!
