Fishin' with Grandma Matchie - Steven Erikson

[Rane Longfox]

"Fishin'..." is possibly one of the oddest books I have ever read. Just short, maybe, of Iain Banks' "Feersum Endjinn". As Graham Joyce notes, in the introduction, most authors go through a "silly" phase, and this is undoubtably Erikson's.
The book is narrated by a nine-year-old boy called Tike by Grandma Matchie, and Jock Junior by everyone else. He has a clearly over-active imagination, and the novella describes his adventures on a three week holiday in a lakeside cabin somewhere in canada, and also some of the later events at his school triggered by the holiday.
They say silly phase because of sentances like "Dad's eyes bulgered, and Mom jippled out of her chair, her bum hitting the floor with a bathump". Silly indeed. But thankfully the phraseology, while used regularly, is not in there so often as to be unberably over the top.
The story itself, however, leans so far over the "bizarre" line that its virtually hoizontal. My favorite quote from the book is

The canoe had a big hole in it, but Grandma Matchie said, "Never mind, that way we'll be able to see the lake bottom. That's important," she said. "He'll leave tracks, he will. We gotta follow em, we do."

Yes. Exactly. The story centres on the character of Grandma Matchie (obviously), and her fued with an evil character called the "One Armed Trapper", his mother "Lunker", and "Satan Himself" (with capitals). Trying to avoid spoilers, there are three separate adventures that GM and Tike go on, one in each week of the holiday, and these are the "chapters" as such. They all involve the two of them travelling through the lakes in one odd way or another (one with the holed canoe, one skiing on lamprays, and the final on a giant tortoise ) Yes, as long as you ignore the constraints of reality, this novella is fine. Otherwise you'll hate it. A lot of walking underwater (and, in fact, Grandma Matchie is living underwater), giant byson, sea snakes, giant rats, shooting stars, and extremely OLD people, make for an extremely surreal journey through the bizarre imaginings of a very clever young kid.
I enjoyed the book immensley, and Erikson's writing quality, usually so evident in the vast story arcs of his Malazan series, shines through here as well.
There does remain one question in my mind, however, is why? This is an entirely pointless story, as far as I can tell. Its a question I'd love to ask Erikson is why he wrote it, where it all came from? I'm stumped.
Love the book though

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for the review Cal, most interesting and NO I've not read it yet but was looking forward to reading your take on it....

[knivesout]

This certaily sounds like an entertaining and uncharacteristic diversion. I look forward to reading it in a collection of Erikson's novellas at some point.