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The Chessmen of Doom

de John Bellairs

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Sèrie: Johnny Dixon (7)

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Johnny Dixon, Fergie and Professor Childermass comply with a strange will left by the Professor's brother, which requires them to spend the summer at a desolate estate where they encounter a madman bent on destroying the world.
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"A dead eye... a room with no view... pallid dwarves on a board that's not true..." What dis professor Childermass's eccentric brother mean by the mysterious riddle? And why has he left a will that says the professor must spend the entire summer on his ramshackle state or lose his huge inheritance ?
  Daniel464 | Aug 20, 2021 |
When Professor Childermass' brother Perry dies, he leaves the Prof ten million dollars and his landed estate in Maine. The catch, of course, is that he must spend the summer at the remote country estate with no paid help. Naturally, the Prof is up to the task, but invites Johnny and Fergie to join him. The letter informing the professor of his brother's death comes with a riddle that comes back to haunt the professor. It speaks of pallid dwarves, dead eyes, and hairy stars. What does it mean?

This book is the usual absurd Gothic nonsense I love from Bellairs. The estate is not only large it is filled with "worthless" statuary and books imported from Europe, features a personalized tomb and statue by the front door and a 300ft memorial column - that you can climb up - for General Herkimer of the American Revolutionary War. There's also an observatory, among other things. I wish Bellairs had spent more (read: any) time describing what the boys discover in the house instead of glossing over it. I felt the lack, though child-me filled the mansion with all the Victorian trappings I longed to find in my '80s ranch. Stone Arabia and Lake Umbagog join General Herkimer as real references moved into Bellairs' world, along, of course with some recently stolen ivory chessmen from the British Museum.

Need I go into the plot? A nefarious person plans on ending life on Earth as we know it with the use of ancient, dark magic and ineffectually tries to scare the Prof and the boys from the estate so he has a clear path. He might as well have employed an unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism when he lures the gang out onto the lake. I did love the detail that Professor Roderick Random Childermass and his brothers Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker and Ferdinand Count Fathom were all named after heroes of Tobias Smollett's novels by their literary parents.

'Chessmen of Doom' makes up for its plot - stretched over a year to little purpose - with such details.

Johnny Dixon

Next: 'The Secret of the Underground Room'

Previous: 'The Trolley to Yesterday' ( )
  ManWithAnAgenda | May 30, 2020 |
Typical Bellairs. It is a good formula; but a bit of a letdown after "The Trolley to Yesterday" which was kind of original for him. I always like the Gorey covers, but when the characters are too prominently shown they are a bit jarring, because they don't look like their descriptions in the book. The trip to London is fun, and the characters will return to England again in the next book. By this point in the series; it is really noticeable how the years go by and the two boys remain the same age. ( )
  themulhern | Apr 24, 2020 |
Yep, this is the one I remember best from my childhood, and also one of my favorites. Creepy mysteries! Evil skulls! Nonsense rhymes! Random old ladies saving the day! ( )
  jen.e.moore | Oct 18, 2014 |
I admit it: I sometimes judge books by their titles when deciding whether or not to buy them. That is the only explanation I have for owning two copies of John Bellairs's The Chessmen of Doom. The title's great, but that's it. What an incredibly choppy prose style Bellairs has! I got to page 14 before I decided to stop punishing myself.

Just because you're writing for a younger audience doesn't mean your style should sound inane; children deserve quality prose just as much as adult readers. I can't stand the idea that children's literature is somehow less demanding to write; the best children's books are genius in their very simplicity. Anyone can write reams of description; how many can pare it down and still convey the germ of the idea? And do it without evoking the dreaded chop-chop staccato effect?

Bellairs must never have heard the dictum "show, don't tell." Imagine pages and pages of this:

Johnny's grandparents and parents and Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson liked the professor and trusted him, and they were pleased to have the boys traveling under his care. The boys were excited about the trip, and since they had heard that there was a lot of wilderness around Perry's estate, they got together their camping equipment and aired out their sleeping bags... The boys got giggly whenever they thought about camping out with the professor, because they were sure he would be the world's worst outdoorsman. But when he lectured them about whittling tent stakes and making a fire with flint and steel, they always remained very sober faced and grave. (12–13)

And they walked around woodenly in the prose of the author, laughing or being mischievous on cue, automatons whose every emotion and thought is explained painstakingly to the reader, who is presumably hard of reading. Ugh. ( )
2 vota atimco | Nov 16, 2010 |
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Nom de l'autorCàrrecTipus d'autorObra?Estat
John Bellairsautor primaritotes les edicionscalculat
Gorey, EdwardIl·lustradorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
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Johnny Dixon, Fergie and Professor Childermass comply with a strange will left by the Professor's brother, which requires them to spend the summer at a desolate estate where they encounter a madman bent on destroying the world.

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