Mister Monday

[sawyl]

In need of something undemanding, I've spent some time reading Garth Nix' Keys to the Kingdom series of novels starting with Mister Monday. The book opens with a short prologue which establishes the existence of the Will, divided into seven parts and left unexecuted by its Trustees. But the Will possesses a mind of its own and when the least part, trapped at the centre of a dead star for the last ten thousand years, has the opportunity to escape, it seizes its chance and sets the story in motion.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, it is Arthur Penhaligon's first day at a new school where a cross-country run triggers a serious asthma attack. During the worst of it Arthur dreams that a man in a bath chair, Mister Monday, has given him the minute hand of a clock and a book called The Compleat Atlas of the House and Immediate Environs. The whole thing, as the Monday's butler helpfully reminds him, is a dodge: if they make the dying Arthur the Rightful Heir, even for a few minutes, they can reclaim the items after his death and pretend that they have executed their part of the Will as required. But thanks to the timely intervention of a girl called Leaf, Arthur survives and wakes to find himself in hospital with the the Atlas tucked under his pillow.

Leaving hospital a week later, Arthur notices that his world has take a turn for the strange: not only has a vast, baroque house appeared from nowhere in the middle of his neighbourhood, but he is being followed by dog-faced men that no-one else can see. Returning to school, where he is allowed to sit out his games lesson in the library, Arthur is confronted by a silver-tongued angelic denizen who demands the return of his master's book and minute hand. When Arthur refuses Noon starts a fire in order to drive him into the hands of the waiting dog-men, but when Arthur makes it out, he discovers that his school has been quarantined following the outbreak of something called the Sleepy Plague.

Arthur realises that the plague has something to do with the dog-men and, guided by the Atlas, he escapes from his ambulance and enters the House through a side entrance. After a disorienting experience, he finds himself on a green hill in a vast room, where he is greeted by the Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door. Attempting to find someone who knows what is going on, Arthur walks down to a city where he bumps into an urchin called Suzy Turquoise Blue who offers to help him. When the pair encounter an mobile fragment of the Will disguised a frog, Arthur learns that he has become the Rightful Heir to the Great Architect and that he must claim the hour hand from Mister Monday in order to save the House, and by extension all of creation, from destruction.

A good solid opening to the series, the book establish much of the symbolism that is to follow: the imagery of the Great Architect, long absent from the universe; the Will, broken into parts and left unexecuted by the seven Trustees; the House, which sits at the heart of creation, and the Secondary Realms, like Earth, which sit outside the House. We also learn about the seven Morrow Days, one for each weekday, each with a separate sphere of influence within the House, each given a portion of the Will and each possessing a key of great power. Each of the days is served by three great denizens, Dawn, Noon, and Dusk, each of which has their own group of servants, allowing them to carry out the orders of their Day.

Through the Atlas we that the House is surrounded by Nothing, a useful but volatile substance that can be used to craft new creations. Nothing can also be gathered — or can spontaneously gather itself — into creatures called Nithlings, like the dog-men dispatched by Monday to find his missing minute hand, which, as with all powers of the house, cause devastation and plagues when employed in the Secondary Realms.

Suzy's presence is explained by the Piper, who led a group of children into the House many centuries before Arthur's time causing them to become stuck in a form of eternal childhood. Over time, the Piper's Children have gradually absorbed the magical atmosphere of the House, becoming something more than human but still somewhat less than the denizens created by the Architect herself. Unlike the most members of the House, the Piper's Children have an independence of spirit and an adaptability of mind that makes them perfect foils for the more inflexible denizens who can't seem to improvise or create even when their lives depend on it.

When Arthur finally wins the day — because he was always going to — and finds himself Master of the Lower House, his primary concern is to avoid any further adventures and to return home with a cure for the Sleepy Plague, which his mother has been valiantly battling. But the structure of the story being what it is, no soon has the clock tipped over midnight into Tuesday than Arthur's hotline, his direct connection to Dame Primus, his steward, starts to ring...