A catfish swims the
rivers of the world seeking love. A prisoner poses as the Keeper of the
Sultan's Vultures and Crocodiles to lull the sultan with stories of
executions.
The mother of a child born without a head is given death by
breaking as a sacrificial punishment. Christopher Lord's Book of
Amuwapi collects these stories with snippets of anthropology and faked
etymologies to present a scrapbook of folklore he holds out as his own
contribution to prehistory. Illustrated by Petr Nikl in a style
recalling the French animation classic Fantastic Planet, Amuwapi is an
oddly surreal work which seems like it should be read in a hothouse
sweating in the mixed scents of transplanted flowers. Its beauties are
similarly synthetic, the folktales removed from their climates and
hybridized with children's stories and academic texts. At times, Lord's
tone can sound school marmish as when his animals speak like the
well-mannered beasts of Pooh's forest, but there is enough violence and
variety to disperse these vapors. Like the rest of Twisted Spoon's
catalogue, it is a beautiful book, and it seems made for the bedtime
reading of an ideally morbid young child.