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- Verified Buyer
"The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, /The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear" (from "Lepanto" by G.K. Chesterton).Every good fantasy is allegorical of some view of the universe. "The High House" concerns itself with the battle between the created Universe and Chaos. I use 'created' in the religious sense of the word. This book is filled with robust, old-fashioned Victorian religion--"Onward, Christian Soldiers" and all that--in which God and Newton ordered the heavens and our world.The Master of High House (also called Evenmere) has been given the task of balancing the forces of chaos against those of the created universe. In High House, which seems to have an infinity of corridors and rooms, certain lamps must always be lit against nightfall, and certain clocks must always be kept wound.Leviathan lives in the attic, and the dark river of Entropy is kept behind a locked door in the cellar.There is also a Room of Horrors in the cellar where the Master's little son, Carter is imprisoned by the Forces of Chaos, whose representative is a faceless English Bobby. His father rescues him, but Chaos steals the master keys to the hidden rooms of High House. After the faceless Bobby catches Carter again and throws him down a well, the Master of High House decides to foster Carter out to friends, who live in safe, sane Victorian England.Fourteen years pass before Carter returns to Evenmere and sees it as an adult:"For the first time he realized it was a truly beautiful pile of building, all masonry, oak, and deep golden brick, a unique blend of styles--Elizabethan and Jacobean fused with Baroque...Upon the balustrades and turrets stood carved lions, knights, gnomes, and pinecones; iron crows faced outward at the four corners. The Elizabethan entrance, the centerpiece of the manor, was framed by gargantuan gate piers and pavilions, combining Baroque outlines with Jacobean ornamentation...At the main entrance stood the tall, gray marble sculpture of a figure dressed in the robe of a monk, his hood thrown back from his face, his long locks rippling over his shoulders, eyes to the sky, his muscled arms held before him as if he faced a great northern storm, more like a god of thunder, despite the cross hanging from his neck, than a pious pilgrim."Carter's father, the Master of High House has disappeared down one of the House's hidden corridors to the Land of the Rainbow Sea. In his absence, the Forces of Chaos erupt into the House, and Carter must do battle with them, as he learns the awesome secret of High House and discovers how he might rescue his missing father."The High House" is a unique venture into fantasy. I had to keep checking the publication date (1998) to convince myself it was actually written in the twentieth, not the nineteenth century. The House itself is lovingly described in all of its beauty and horror. Unfortunately the characters are not as well delineated--the only two who stood out for me were Enoch, who might have been an Old Testament prophet (he had long talks with God) and is now the clock-winder in High House; and Leviathan, the shadowy, omniscient monster in the attic. The female characters were pretty two-dimensional (another Victorian conceit?). There is the standard wicked step-mother. Anina, the goddess of Order, and a Porcelain Duchess play minor roles, along with a gaggle of faceless maids. The book rises above the standard, male-bonding, fantasy quest only through the grandly imagined eccentricities and unique byways of the House itself.
