More Jonathan Carroll

I requested a few more Jonathan Carroll books from the library – the ones that the cover copy mentioned as those that had gotten the most acclaim: The Wooden Sea and White Apples. Once I looked at a few more of his books I realized that the themes I discovered in The Ghost in Love were typical Jonathan Carroll themes, and that his books are full of people who come back from the dead, unusual otherworldly characters, and other fantastic elements, all of which I like very much because they’re very creative (although I wonder if I would get tired of them after a few books). I immediately started reading White Apples. His works are very easy to get into – a few sentences and you’re hooked because they grab you with clever dialogue and interesting scenarios and just fly along. So now I’m reading White Apples and Dara Horn’s The World to Come simultaneously, which is a very odd combination. And yet strangely enough, I keep finding parallels. The Horn book has a lot of connections to Jewish folklore and it frequently refers to babies in the womb and what happens to them just before they are born, how an angel comes and shows them the whole life they are about to live and then slaps them so they forget it (and that is why babies are born crying) – this fits right in with Carroll’s characters who seem to go back and forth between life and death. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever before read two books at once in quite this way, going back and forth between them within a short period of time, and it’s odd how they mix together – makes for much interesting creative foment!