Author: Garth Nix
Cover Artist: John Blackford
Publisher: Scholastic
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: July 2003
Mister Monday is the first novel in Garth Nix’s The Keys to the Kingdom series. I bought both this and the second installment, Grim Tuesday yesterday, and they represent my introduction to Mr. Nix’s writing, which I have heard mostly positive opinions of, although generally the praises are directed at Nix’s ‘Old Kingdom’ series. Before you get to far into your reading of Mister Monday, it becomes plainly apparent that The Keys to the Kingdom will be a seven novel cycle, forthcoming this year will be the third installment Drowned Wednesday, followed by Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, Superior Saturday, and concluding with Lord Sunday.
First it should be noted that with The Keys to the Kingdom, Nix is targeting a younger audience, and with that in mind Mister Monday is an intriguing, entertaining, and at times a rather creative and inventive first installment of a series. The novel, and I am assuming the entire series, centers around a teenage boy named Arthur Penhaligon, and his adventures brought on to him both unannounced and undesired, the way fate and destiny seemingly always prefer. While running during gym class, Arthur who suffers from asthma is intercepted by two men – well seemingly men – but also without doubt not of the norm, and becomes the spectator of a argument between the two of them that ends in a rather fantastic light show, and in the end leaves him with a key and a book, not to mention suffering from a possibly fatal asthma attack. Only he didn’t die, preserved by the strange artifacts and the help of two other students, Ed, and Leaf, siblings, he is taken to a hospital, and finds out that no one else saw these wo mysterious men who assailed Arthur, who we find out to be Sneezer, and the title character Mister Monday, except Leaf.
On returning home from the hospital Arthur notes a House, a House seemingly only he visible to him, and one that was not there before. This House was described as enormous, castle like, as big as city block, with a mixture of architectures, consisting of marble, and different timbers, featuring “arches, aqueducts, and apses; bartizans, belfries, and buttresses; chimneys, crenellations, and cupolas; galleries and gargoyles; pillars and portcullises; terraces and turrets,” and had a quality in which one could not focus on any one as due so many varying features of the House. Note the constant capitalization of House, as I will get back to it in a moment. In the “real world” there is a an epidemic spreading amongst the population, one that Arthur attributes to the strange happenings occurring around him ever since his meeting Mister Monday and Sneezer, and amidst different attempts at retrieving Arthur’s key and book back, twice by men/bloodhound hybrids, and once by a rather powerful being known as Monday’s Noon. The epidemic, called the “sleeping plague” particularly is personal to young Arthur as his biological parents were both taken by a similar break out, some years ago, an epidemic that was stopped by the woman who would become his mother in his adopted family, a noted, and rather famous doctor. Arthur himself would have died, if not for her and it is because of his exposure to the plague that killed his parents that he suffers from his rather chronic asthma problem. Arthur discerns a link between the plague outbreak and the strange happenings from his book, which is more specifically an atlas, and atlas of the aforementioned House.
Arthur decides to explore the House, his goal to somehow find a way to stop the epidemic, and this is where the adventure really begins in Mister Monday. The House is not only obviously not a part of normal reality, but is actually for a lack of better word, The Beginning after Nothing. It is from the House that the Architect crafted creation, including our reality called a “secondary realm”. The denizens of the House are watchers, recording histories of the secondary realms, never interacting and tampering with them. The cause of these tamperings is due to the Architect (God) having left for some time leaving only what is called his “Will’ that in essence is his mandate until his/her return. This “Will”, being of divine origin, has a power of its own, and works magically to make sure the mandate is upheld, but was broken by and separated into 7 parts all of which were securely hidden, and locked away, individually. This “Will” passes on sovereignty to a mortal heir (Arthur) in the event the Architect does not return. Now it is important to note that the Will not only is a paper that states this proclamation, but its physical presence and its possession is in essence the true power. It becomes apparent that during the Architect’s absence, 7 beings corrupted by greed, destroyed this “covenant”, and divided power amongst themselves, by giving absolute power of each of them in their realm (all of which are parts of the House) and dominion over the secondary realms (again the Earth, and what we know as the universe) split to each other one day a week. Thus Mister Monday is the overlord of his portion of the House, The Lower, and all secondary realms on Monday. Now the Key Arthur has, is half of a set, the other is possession of Mister Monday, and the novel is based on Arthur and Monday each trying to obtain the half they do not possess, as whomever of the two of them (because Arthur is the rightful heir, and Monday because was the chosen trustee when the Architect left) claims both for their own, is by all recognized law the ruler of the Lower House, and Mondays.
This novel has some intriguing elements going for it, and some aspects that left something to be desired in my opinion. First, as described above I like the creativity in regards to the House, its dwellers, and the whole twist on creation Nix offers, really well done considering as I said he retains a tone that can be enjoyed and understood by a younger audience yet detailed enough to retain the interest of an older audiences with many of the little nuances thrown in regards to the hierarchy within the House, and documentation of its purpose and origins. Also Nix throws in a couple of recognizable visits to familiar times such as brief looks into and tying pieces of the plot into times of the Black Plague, and the Pied Piper legend (ala Mieville in King Rat), and a brief visit to the Battle of Marathon. I also think I am going to enjoy the format of the series in regards to splitting of the seven cycle series, each installment most likely dedicated to an adventure dealing with the next level of the House, thus that level’s trustee/Overlord, offering a complete story like Mister Monday did, yet making it a part of a bigger saga, exploring a different areas and antagonist with each new offering. One of the aspects that bothered me about Mister Monday was Arthur’s recurring asthma. Now don’t get me wrong, his condition itself didn’t bother me, in fact, I think it adds a unique element to the character, but his condition and more notably Arthur’s awareness of his condition is overbearing at times, as if Nix feels the need to remind the reader every page about Arthur medical debilitation, often in my opinion causing the flow of the story to lose some steam at some points. Also one has to take into account Mister Monday spends a notable portion of its pages in setting up the necessary rules, and background information, that made the story feel somewhat short, and in a way makes the read in parts feel not as fluid, and because of this I hope at least on some general level, the rules of each level of the House (in the forthcoming novels) are somewhat similar so more time can be used for the story, and not for depicting all new elements.
Nix really at times displays some really creative inventions with Mister Monday, and I want to point out that Nix is not one of the many writers that have crawled out of seemingly everywhere offering a fantasy series targeted toward a slightly younger audience, trying to get a piece of the monumental success and following of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have enjoyed. He was published in the genre a few years before Harry made print. In conclusion I have to say I enjoyed Mister Monday, my first Garth Nix read, at least enough to where with some expectation present I’ll probably start and finish the second installment of the series today. Although I don’t think it approaches the quality of another series targeting the same audience, Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series (which is no slight as that’s an incredible series), I would definitely recommend giving this series a try.
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