Book #2 of 2017:
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit
I tried to keep an open mind while reading this novel, because I knew it was published in a very different era. And it is interesting as a historical artifact, offering a glimpse not only of 1907 Britain, but also of the state of children’s fantasy literature in the years before Narnia. (Indeed, it’s hard to read this adventure of four English schoolchildren discovering an invisibility ring and not wonder how it may have influenced both Lewis and his friend Tolkien.)
But it’s just not a very good story, and one character or another is always being either awful – like smearing himself with oil and pretending to be an Indian swami – or utterly moronic – like using a magic wish to turn herself into a statue. The Enchanted Castle shows off children fantasy literature’s roots, but it mostly just provides relief that the genre has grown up since then.
★★☆☆☆
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