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The Unwritten, Vol. 4: Leviathan (2011)

by Mike Carey(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1401232922 (ISBN13: 9781401232924)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Vertigo (DC Comics)

series

The Unwritten

review 1: I really enjoyed this one. When the story moves awake from the fake fictional world into the real fiction I find it much more enjoyable. I really enjoyed the Leviathan story and the way that worked. While not a fan of the "collective unconscious" there were some really interesting theories being addressed in how that works. How the fictional and the real are intermingling is done very well. I love the vampire transformation. The story of the animals trying to escape reality was so futile and sad and by far my favourite part of this issue. I'm really glad I decided to stick with this series.
review 2: As with the last volume, I couldn’t immediately derive any rewarding meaning from this book. I normally read a few reviews to see what I might be missing and mo... morest reviews cover the obvious story, which in this volume is essentially Tommy looking for "the source”. Some mention that Carey is exploring “big ideas”, but fail to elaborate on what these “big ideas” are. Others see a continuation of the same theme now for four volumes in a row and would wish for the series to wrap up. So either it is so obvious to the average reader what these “big ideas” are, that they don’t need to put it into their reviews or they don’t see it at all. As the series continues to deal with different aspects of story-telling, I definitely need some moments to understand how this story is relevant to me (if at all).In a way, volume 4 continues the theme of volume 3 of getting to the true nature of your story and we get plenty of these “origin” nuggets in this volume: the origin of why Tommy's parents split up, the remembering of a childhood friendship, how Tommy got his powers, etc.The story illuminates another aspect of storytelling - how you impact a story when you get involved in it. The story doesn’t only affect you (as has been elaborated on in past volumes), but you affect it too (by using the same symbols and metaphors in your own story and continuing to build the symbol into the narrative of society - Tommy calls it the “fictional unconscious"). Stories converge at symbols - here in the form of a whale (and by knowing these symbols and manoeuvring these, Tommy can can literally work his magic and transcend worlds).Sadly, although the book spends a lot of time on how stories converge (which I find highly intriguing), the actual story is not compelling enough that I want to dive in to the different clues to gain a greater overall satisfaction in a second reading.The volume ends with a gloomy continuation of the story of the foul-mouthed rabbit Pauly. Far more emotional than the main story, we see how the narrative of a group of people is shaped by taking up the existing grand narrative, continuing it and through your actions shape the story for future generations.Ultimately, the book leaves me on a hopeful note. One that celebrates reading, one that asks us to familiarise ourselves with our history of metaphors and using these when engaging in society. less

Download links for: The Unwritten, Vol. 4: Leviathan

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