Cages

Dave McKean

I finished Cages over the space of a weekend. I still have no idea what's really going on behind the scenes in this book. All I know is that it is a profoundly powerful experience, and not to be missed.

The story centers on Leo, an artist who (he tells his landlady, and others, early on in the book) found himself at an impasse in life and needed a change. Well, he certainly gets on here. His building is full of odd lots: a reclusive writer on the floor below him (one of whose novels provides the title for McKean's book), a philosophy-spouting jazz musician on the floor above, and a landlady who loves talking to pigeons. There are some other minor characters floating about, but those are the bunch you'll get to know best. There's also a cat who wanders around the building at will.

How you decide to read this is pretty much up to you (as long as you read it. You will go read it immediately, won't you?). You can read it for the story itself, which is unfortunately a bit disjointed, and if you don't read a little deeper you'll find yourself holding some loose threads at the end that beg for a closer reading. You'll likely find yourself more satisfied with it if you read a few layers down, tracing the patterns of the lives of the characters and figuring out who's who and what everyone's representing. (McKean should be giving you just enough in the book's final chapter to get most of it figured out without exhaustive analysis.) There is also, and I didn't go this far, the opportunity to completely submerge yourself in the book's symbolism, figuring out the archetypes for every character in the book (mull on this: given the revelations about the cat in the end, what is one to make of the landlady and her endless talking to pigeons?). One could spend a great deal of time thinking about Cages, and it demands a great deal of thought.

The only problem with this novel (and, graphic or no, this is one of the finest examples of the novel I have read this year in any form) is that it seems as if the surface layer suffered a bit in the final analysis. Things aren't quite as neatly wrapped as the should be to make this a perfect piece on every level (as they are in, say, Wendy Walker's The Secret Service or Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian). Still, that's an extremely minor point in the general scheme of things. I cannot recommend Cages highly enough. This will easily be finding a lot on my 25-Best list this year.