My new frame of reference for moral issues: “What would Capability C. Craft do?”

Ellen Booraem.  The Unnameables.  Harcourt, 2008.  318 pages.  Age 9 to 14.

Summary – All that exists on the island (a utopia known as Fools’ Haven to outsiders) is by the book—A Frugall Compendium of Home Arts and Farme Chores by Capability C. Craft, to be specific.  Utility is their society’s most important value.  If a thing is useful, it is named after its purpose.  If it is not useful, it is given no name.  Even people are named after their vocations, and are expected to fulfill the duties of their names—no more, no less.

Refugee Medford Runyuin, who floated ashore as an infant, not only has a meaningless name, but privately engages in purposeless activities.  Not the “you’ll go blind” sort of activity; he makes ornamental wood carvings.  He worries about keeping his secret, but then a satyr blows into town (literally!) and, well, things change.

Kudos – Just featuring a flawed utopia is enough for a book to win favor from me.  A puritanical flawed utopia, at that.

Kudon’ts – I was tossing in bed the other night because there are body odor issues that were integral to the story, which were never resolved.  Those of us who work in urban libraries would describe it as the kind of odor that makes your eyes ache.  Acidic, offensive, impossible to ignore.  Does the goatman ever take a bath?  Does he wash his dog?  I don’t know why, but I need to know.

Points –

• +15 for the all-purpose “bweh-eh-eh”
• -50 for tangentially reminding me of Torgo and his annoying, repetitive, four-note theme song
• +30 for a quiet revolution, one of limited change that might actually be maintained

Quotable –

“So there she was, Mistress Prudence Learned, braider of braids, crusher of shells, speaker of Book Talk, listening to a Nameless, smelly man with horns talk about mountains and goats and the exact dimensions of his last winter shelter.” (p. 113)

Other reviews – Oops…Wrong Cookie | The Goddess of YA Literature