Every story needs its own monster

Simon Bartolo: Deformity, Merlin Publishers, 2011, 364 pp.

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In his novel Deformity, Simon Bartolo does what he does best. He unleashes the colourful fantastical world that lives fertile in his mind and merges it with hard reality.

What is fascinating is the domino effect of an ostensibly insignificant event in one child’s life- Sihon Gauci

The fascinating result is a merger of the made up with the real, of the liberating fiction with the profundity of reality.

It would be too obvious to say the best part of this novel is its exciting plot, its page turning twists, and its captivating storyline. It would be too obvious and not entirely true.

While the storyline is undoubtedly strong, there are so many elements that make this book a resounding success and highlighting just the one would be indisputably an injustice.

Bartolo’s use of contrast is subtle and yet unequivocal. His protagonist, Erick Noyle, lives a 100 years into the future, in a grey world ravaged by floods with constant everyday drizzle, where people go to the movies just to gawk at the blue skies of the past.

In comparison, Joey lives in the colourful world he created, where fairies and mermaids roam free and vivid gardens embellish. Yet while the disparity is manifest, both worlds seem to be controlled by a dystopian ruler.

Erick lives in a society whereby sex for procreation is illegal and sterility for young male adults is compulsory. It is a future world whereby technological advancement in the field of genetic manipulation, brought about a palpable decline in human freedom, where the aim always justifies the means and human rights are relentlessly the sacrifice.

Joey on the other hand is the sovereign in a world he fashioned specifically to obey his every command.

Magical creatures while outwardly portraying every child’s fantasy, lack the delightful enchantment of what essentially makes them magical.

What is fascinating is the domino effect of an ostensibly insignificant event in one child’s life. Joey’s Peter Pan complex originating from a stage performance he attended when he was a child, was the momentous event that made him who he was.

A man, who literally refused to grow up and caused the world to change in order to do so. In his quest for everlasting childhood, Joey failed to realise two very vital things.

He failed to see that with his every action, fuelled by the need to cling on to his idea of the perfect world of childhood fantasy, he lost the very essence of what makes a child, that is, unadulterated innocence.

In so doing, he inadvertently created the monster he claimed was essential to every good story. Ironically, Joey’s pursuit for the everlasting beauty of magic is what caused his soul’s deformity and he became the true monster.

In Deformity, Bartolo succeeds in producing an evocative creation that spreads out far beyond its number of pages. Bartolo merges the fantastical world that lives fertile in his mind with moving and at times poignant aspects of everyday life.

He writes about fairies and suicide in the space of a few pages, because every story needs a monster and life’s ultimate monster is unarguably death.