★★★☆☆ The Pilgrim's Progress through Hell

The Infernals

John Connolly

I am sorry to say that I was a little disappointed by the second installment of John Connolly's Samuel Johnson series, The Infernals. I got into the series by reading the short story The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness, which was delightful. The first novel, The Gates, was equally delightful, at greater length.

The Infernals is less delightful. It spends too much time wandering around, not getting anywhere. In fact, it reminded me of one of the most tedious novels of all time (IMHO), John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. In The Pilgrim's Progress the hero, Christian, wanders through a landscape peopled by personified abstractions, trying to find his way to Heaven. In a similar way, Samuel and Nurd and Mr. Merryweather’s Elves wander around Hell having difficulties with various personfications of evil. Connolly's Hell doesn't make a lot of sense. Fair enough -- Hell is not SUIPPOSED to make sense. But this gets boring.

Connolly is still a very funny writer. The footnotes alone make the book worth the read. But The Infernals definitely felt like a step down from The Gates.

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