13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
by Walter Moers
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Read in March, 2006
I spent the first 300 or so pages of this book trying to figure out whether it was a children's book for very advanced children or an adult book for readers who hadn't lost their sense of play and wonder. It's whimsically illustrated, audaciously imaginative, and has a distinked [sic:] fascination with body odor. But to get some of the jokes, you need to have a passing familiarity with quantum physics, string theory, and academic politics. Eventually I gave up trying to categorize it and just en...more
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Read in May, 2008
Bluebears have a total of 27 lives, but this particular bluebear tells his story of the first 13 1/2. He begins as a tiny little thing on a nutshell in the middle of the Zamonian Sea who is taken under the wings of mini pirates. As Bluebear grows they send him off into the world where he encounters different characters throughout the first 13 1/2 years of his life. Each chapter indicates a new chapter in his life, and he remains there until he learns what he is meant to learn and/or succeeds ...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
people who like the same thing, over and over and over again
Ehhh. If I would have been the editor on this book I would have cut out about, oh, 400 pages. And I would have asked if maybe, just maybe, we could work some STORY into the novel.
Really, the book is no more than a catalog of happenstance. I did THIS, and then THIS happened, and after that I went to THIS weird place where I did THIS weird thing. Multiply that by some 700 pages and you have a snorefest. Was it wildly inventive? Yes it was. Were there interesting characters? Certainly. What ab...more
Really, the book is no more than a catalog of happenstance. I did THIS, and then THIS happened, and after that I went to THIS weird place where I did THIS weird thing. Multiply that by some 700 pages and you have a snorefest. Was it wildly inventive? Yes it was. Were there interesting characters? Certainly. What ab...more
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Indescribable, mad book, but fun.
A blue bear tells of his bizarre adventures (half of his 27 lives) in a fantasy world of extraordinary creatures. Rescued and raised by mini pirates, taught to talk by Babbling Willows, navigator for a pterodactyl superhero etc etc. Interspersed with snippets from an encyclopaedia about the relevant creatures (shades of Hitchiker's), and plenty of pen and ink illustrations.
The overall effect is like a more adult version of Steward and Ridell's Edge Chro...more
A blue bear tells of his bizarre adventures (half of his 27 lives) in a fantasy world of extraordinary creatures. Rescued and raised by mini pirates, taught to talk by Babbling Willows, navigator for a pterodactyl superhero etc etc. Interspersed with snippets from an encyclopaedia about the relevant creatures (shades of Hitchiker's), and plenty of pen and ink illustrations.
The overall effect is like a more adult version of Steward and Ridell's Edge Chro...more
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Read in June, 2005
recommends it for:
peple who like Pratchett, tall tales, like to figure out puns and parodies
I knew Captain Bluebear from a children's TV show, and I just needed something to read to the kids in a summer camp.
The whole book is like a fairy tale in modern language, with a lot of funny situations and conversations. Moers "translates" the real world into his continent Zamonien. Actually, it is more the continet with its plants, creatures and places that keeps the main role in the story, Captain Bluebear is more or less just travelling through and explores it for the reader...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Someone with a sense of humour, enjoyment of puns, and creative imagination
I picked it up because the cover art caught my attention and the title was so novel as to get me to skim through a few pages. It's a tome of a book, but really a fast read. Broken down into each of Bluebear's "lives" it's more of a collection of 13 1/2 stories than one contiguous story (though they do all tie in together, of course). It is reminiscent of a children's story book but with complex ideas so as to be interesting to the adult. But that kind of feel. A blue bear that rides on...more
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Read in June, 2006
recommends it for:
anyone who enjoys a good, light farce
This book is as random as everyone says it is. For me, it was a return to such childrens books as the Wizard of Oz and the Phantom Tollbooth. Those who say they don't understand what it was about were trying too hard. It is about the enjoyment of the reader as he/she witnesses the wonderous, wierd and comic characters and places Bluebear encounters. If you really need meaning in your reading, check out Sartre or Wendell Berry.
The story is light and fun in itself. Equally fun are the fan...more
The story is light and fun in itself. Equally fun are the fan...more
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Read in March, 2008
If I could give half stars I would rate "13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear" with 3 1/2 stars.
If you like playing with words, contemplating physics, figuring out math, connecting with faerie tale creatures and just plain randomness, you will enjoy this book.
There is a city inside of a tornado, a floating mirage city, a university inside a mountain and of course the famous city Atlantis.
Bluebear is found lost in the ocean as a baby and is raised by minipirates. The book foll...more
If you like playing with words, contemplating physics, figuring out math, connecting with faerie tale creatures and just plain randomness, you will enjoy this book.
There is a city inside of a tornado, a floating mirage city, a university inside a mountain and of course the famous city Atlantis.
Bluebear is found lost in the ocean as a baby and is raised by minipirates. The book foll...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
almost everyone
I picked up this book because it had one of those taglines. You know, the ones that compare it to the works of your favorite authors. I generally tend to ignore those, but I was in the mood for something silly, and the tagline compared it to Douglas Adams. So I bought it, and I liked it. I really liked it. I read half of it on a Sunday night, then raced home from work the next day so I could finish it. It was unbelievably entertaining in that silly way that only novels about big, blue bear...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2007
Really enjoyed it at first, i was amazed at the imagination in the book.. Adult stories are just not written and illustrated this way and it inspired me... It actually had quite a lot of substance... However, as it went on and on in the same exact way in just different settings and problems... for 750 ? pages... And the tone stayed so very dry... it never really changed, by about 600 pages it had become a bit old... I enjoyed the imagination, but it wasn't quite enough to make me want to keep re...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
precocious youth
this book is LOOOONG. and kinda random. i dont know why it was written or who it was meant for. i feel like it should have been in the 'young readers' section of the bookstore...don't get me wrong, it's not bad, but i'm not hooked and i'm on page 387. only 300 some left. thankfully there are pictures in this book! more later..
by the end, i kinda liked the story. i had to skip lots of the parts where the author went into meticulous detail of all the creatures that lived in the city.
it was...more
by the end, i kinda liked the story. i had to skip lots of the parts where the author went into meticulous detail of all the creatures that lived in the city.
it was...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to KiwiKathleen by:
Miriam
My daughter owns this book, and she gave it to me to read a year or so ago. I have to confess that it has stayed on my WaitShelf and been passed over many times, mostly because of its size. I also was uncertain whether I would enjoy it, because it seemed a little over the top. I now happily confess that I was foolish to delay. As she suggested to me, I could easily have read a chapter at a time, and left it beside my bed to read the next chapter in a week or so if I wanted to read smaller bo...more
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recommends it for:
No one
The slipcover of this book compared the writing to Douglas Adams and J.R.R. Tolkein. While I agree that the author could be considered slightly clever and the book an epic saga, both become victims of too much of an almost good thing. This book is 700 pages of repetitive, redundant and reiterative rubbish. I was tempted to stop reading about 300 pages into it but for some unknown reason gave it a chance. Now, I want those last 400 pages of my life back! The endlessness of the story grew incr...more
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Read in July, 2007
i found this book in barnes and noble yesterday and i can't express enough how excited i am to read it. i can't even go into it now because i'm really hungry but HOLY CRAP my life will be better after i read this book.
ok so now i have read the book. it is not as exciting and life-changing as i thought it would be. a nice little adventure tale, but it lacks the depth that makes me go wild for fantasy tales. if simple creativity when it comes to beings and life styles is enough for you, yo...more
ok so now i have read the book. it is not as exciting and life-changing as i thought it would be. a nice little adventure tale, but it lacks the depth that makes me go wild for fantasy tales. if simple creativity when it comes to beings and life styles is enough for you, yo...more
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Read in July, 2006
An 'autobiography" of a blue bear who was found floating on the ocean by MiniPirates, rescued from a carnivorous island by Deus X Machina, a pterodactyl who saves people at the last moment & is currently finishing up his 6th or 7th life - a unconventional education with Professor Abdullah Nightingale at the Nocturnal Academy. The writing is light & funny (kudos to the translator!) and the line drawings definitely add to the offbeat tone.
It's a surreal fantasy (the protagonist is...more
It's a surreal fantasy (the protagonist is...more
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Read in January, 2006
Fantasy fiction has never been my thing but walking through B&N armed with a gift card, the cover of Captain Bluebear struck me as something I needed to read. Clearly, I wasn't disappointed. This is fantasy in the same way that Lord of the Rings is fantasy--the story is set in a world not unlike our own yet filled with creatures and happenstances unfamiliar to us, but the morals, adventures, and character traits are all strangely familiar to us. Somewhere in the midst of Bluebear's fourth li...more
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If you enjoy J. K. Rowling, Shel Silverstein, Douglas Adams, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edwin Abbott, Edward Gorey, Robert Aspirin, or Terry Pratchett, then this is the book for you. It's got it all - adventure, romance, science, philosophy, madcap races and daring escapes, giants, cyclopses, pterodactyls, a professor with seven brains, magic mushrooms, a city inside a tornado, oodles of humor, wacky illustrations, quirks, quarks, and quantum residences where worlds are made of carpet and musical instru...more
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Read in January, 2002
recommends it for:
quirky people, or those who like mental gymnastics
found this in a sci-fi/fantasy bookshop in the grassmarket in edinburgh (transreal fiction, i think it's called. something close to that anyway.) my boyfriend at the time was a sci-fi buff, but i had no interest. i was snooping around, though, and picked this up for the title. the book fell open to the full-page chapter plate that read
1. My Life as a Minipirate
i bought it on the spot. though i've never finished it, i have been picking it up and reveling in it for years - perfect for re...more
1. My Life as a Minipirate
i bought it on the spot. though i've never finished it, i have been picking it up and reveling in it for years - perfect for re...more
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Read in August, 2007
I found the following written on a sticky note inside my copy this book:
"This is a book to be read occasionally and over a long period of time. Too much of it at one time can be a bad thing."
This book is a wildly different story, which is full of interesting adventures. However, I still agree with what I wrote while reading it: Take it a little bit at a time and enjoy it. I found that if I pushed myself, I started to tire of the style. In the end I finished it, but it took me s...more
"This is a book to be read occasionally and over a long period of time. Too much of it at one time can be a bad thing."
This book is a wildly different story, which is full of interesting adventures. However, I still agree with what I wrote while reading it: Take it a little bit at a time and enjoy it. I found that if I pushed myself, I started to tire of the style. In the end I finished it, but it took me s...more
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Read in December, 2006
This book is very good and very bizarre, and I have the feeling I'm the only person who's read it. Which is good, because I plan on turning it into a great movie one day (TM,TM, TM), a movie with a very high special effects budget. All I can say by way of explanation is that it's a completely original fantasy about a bluebear written in German and translated into about 700 pages of funny, creepy, sometimes plain exhausting adventures. It drags in the middle, but hey--so would you if you were wri...more
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