The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books

Author:Walter Moers [Moers, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781448137916
Google: i2b4DJL35T0C
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-11-01T22:15:56+00:00

A lively tune struck up and one of the smaller curtains – the one embroidered with musical notes – slowly rose to reveal an orchestra behind it – or, at least, what passed for an orchestra in a theatre of this kind. It consisted solely of musical instruments. Musicians had been dispensed with, because all the violins, oboes, flutes and so forth were clearly quite capable of playing themselves. I saw a string bass with mechanical arms and legs plucking away at itself, a drum beating itself, a violin bowing itself, a tuba blowing itself. The instruments were equipped not only with limbs but with mechanical eyes that rolled dramatically while they were playing, thereby reinforcing the illusion that they were alive.

‘The Doremifasolatidosian Music Puppets from Doodleton,’ Inazia whispered with a knowing air. She sat back contentedly as if she had supplied me with a thoroughly enlightening explanation.

I counted up to thirty instruments in this extraordinary orchestra and each of them looked so convincing onstage that I couldn’t tell whether the crazy contraptions were really producing the music themselves or whether there was a genuine orchestra hidden somewhere in the building. Dancing above them were funny little puppets in note form, likewise equipped with mechanical eyes, and wriggling wildly between them on strings were snakes made of music paper, which the children in the audience found particularly amusing. Before I could pay due attention to this absurd piece of musical theatre, I was distracted by the next sensation.

A gigantic copper chandelier with hundreds of candles burning in it was lowered from the gridiron. It was flanked by two large spheres covered with little facets of red, green, yellow and blue mirror glass. These now began to revolve, suddenly showering the whole auditorium with bright, multicoloured will-o’-the-wisps of light. But that, of course, wasn’t the true sensation, nor were the two trapezes lowered at a considerable distance from each other. It was the three monkeys who occupied them.

But – of this, dear friends, I was thoroughly convinced – they weren’t real monkeys. Never! Their faces were far too grotesque – more like caricatures of monkey faces – and no wild animal would have let anyone squeeze it into the fancy dress they were wearing. They had to be puppets!

When the trapezes came to rest above the heads of the audience and I was able to examine the creatures’ faces more closely through my opera glasses, I thought, ‘No, it’s impossible! No mechanical creature could have such a lifelike physiognomy.’

For the monkeys were grimacing wildly, opening their eyes wide, pursing their lips and putting out their tongues at people the way only living creatures could have done. Moreover, they now began to move restlessly, clamber around on the trapezes, do chin-ups on the bars and hang from them upside down. No puppet could have done that, it was impossible!

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