Page 45 Review by Stephen
"You'd better take the book with you. If you leave it behind it'll just depress the rest of them, and before you know it they'll start moulting. Pages everywhere."
Magical, modern Lewis Carroll approach to logic and storytelling in one of Gaiman and McKean's most breathlessly exuberant books to date, and if you only see the film you will miss out entirely on Gaiman's brilliantly crafted prose which inevitably presents the story in a completely different manner. In WOLVES IN THE WALL and THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH he proved he could nail the mindset of a young child. Here he masters that of the young teenage girl.
At its heart, it's a book about choices and their consequences. Helena is a girl who feels oppressed by her life as part of a family of circus performers - she wants to experience "real" life instead. Her mother's in hospital, about to go into an operation:
""It's routine," she said, in the same way she'd told me she didn't know why Kelso The Magnificent had left the circus in Hull last season, when I happened to know: a) that she'd fired him herself and b) exactly why she'd fired him. You hear a lot of things, doing the washing up, honest."
But Helena can't forget about the harsh words she spoke to her mother, and whilst asleep she slips into a fantastical dreamland where other aspects of herself - and her mother - threaten to ruin everything. They are, of course, a projected series of dark reflections, as Helena works out her issues before she ruins her own life, because it's often so much easier to see things clearly with a little more distance:
"Movement caught my eyes from the window in the corner, and I went over to it, wiped at it, and saw... Me. Only it wasn't me. She wasn't wearing the kind of clothes I'd wear. And she was screaming at my dad. He looked scared, and tired. I hated that she was shouting, that he didn't tell her to behave, that he was backing away from her. I banged angrily on the window. The girl who wasn't me turned, and for a moment I was certain that she was actually looking at me. I stumbled back to the sitting room, to watch Valentine eating the last of the cakes, while Mrs Bagwell talked about the little sphinxes.
"Kittens do the funniest things. My husband, the late Mr Bagwell, thought they were a nuisance. He called them moggies. They loved him, though. They were so upset after he disappeared that they wouldn't touch their food for a week. More cake, dear?"
"I haven't had any yet."
"Well, you must force yourself."
"Look," I said, "we need to know about the MirrorMask. We thought you might know something about it, having a mask shop."
"There was a girl about your age over here not so long ago. She was asking about it. I'll tell you what I told her. Now let me see... Mr Bagwell used to say the MirrorMask concentrated your desires. Your wishes. It would give you what you needed. I remember I said to him, "Mr Bagwell, how can a mask know what you need?" And he said, "Cynthia, remember, I don't know what I'm talking about.""
