The Gothamites

The Gothamites is a very strange, cute, funny, odd, and quirky collection of shorts tales about the Gothamites who live in Turkeyland. The first tale explains how the world's smartest and most sought-after advisors spent so much time away from home that the women grew unhappy. It was decided, in order to stay home, they needed to become stupid. The rest of the stories all highlight the dumb things the Gothamites did after that including: building a large communal building without windows, laid snares to trap heat from escaping, planting salt seeds, and dealing with an evil crayfish. After buying a mousing dog from a stranger, the Gothamites were shocked to learn the dog would eat homes and people when no mice were left, so they did what any good idiot would do, they burned down their town and dispersed throughout the rest of the world.

Children and adults will interpret the stories quite differently, which makes the whole collection enjoyable for all. The illustrations are different, but fitting.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance reader copy.

I didn't know this author and was happy to have requested this book.
I liked the story and the lovely illustration.
The stories were nice, reminding me of the East European fables. They were sweet, humorous and thought provoking at the same time.
A very good book for both adult and children.
Many thanks to Archipelago and Netgalley for this ARC

This came across as a book of child-friendly nonsense I may have read as a youngster, although I could not have done so based upon when it was written. The piece has a sort of arc as some brainboxes return to their country with the intent of looking so stupid they never get invited back to their posts around the world as advisors ever again. And clearly, from these short stories, they find it surprisingly easy to look daft. They try and drown a crayfish as an attempted murderer, build council chambers in which to debate how to look stupid and forget to include windows, and so much more. But apart from that here are the illustrations, which are wonderful. Yes, they make the balance of the piece seem unusual in that we get dense pages of script alongside full-page illustrations (some young readers will be put off by how much text they see on each spread, even if most stories are two sides long), but they really appeal to the charm of the book. For one thing, even if it's wrong to say it, the female Gothamites are more than a bit attractive, all in their identical summer dresses. For another, weird and wacky vignettes continue from one picture to another, so an encounter with a ladder and a tree gets prolonged over several images, a horse-rider features a lot, as does the man attacked by a dog, a snowman and so much more. All told, this is an intelligent piece of silliness, and if there's more to come of such ilk, may it hasten to my attention. A strong four stars.

Even though the story is supposed to be about a small town in Germany and jokes about its foolish people, 'Kilplased' aka Gothamites found its way into Estonian literature in 1857 via Estonian author Krautzwald. In 1962, children's writer Raud rewrote / retold it. For this edition, Adam Cullen has done the translation from Estonian to English. Priit Pärn made drawings for the story in 1972. But for this edition, he has created brilliant, funny and excruciatingly detailed cartoon-illustrations and they are worth every penny. These are available separately as prints over the net actually too. Each of these is an exact snapshot of the corresponding allegorical tale. It all makes sense!

If taken simply as a tale of people who become foolish by choice as opposed to continuing to develop and evolve as per their god-given talents and brains, then it makes for entertaining and pleasant pass time. (German Order ruled Estonia for a while in its history, so it is plausible to suppose that Krautzwald made fun of the historical anti-German sentiment. However, given the friendly historical relationship between Estonia (former Soviet state) and Turkey I don't know why the name of the place where Gothamites live is called Turkeyland!

Rather funny paean to stupidity

"The Gothamites were famed near and far for their sensibility and keen wit." Their assistance is sought so regularly that they are forever away from home, and decide that the best way to stop this is to become so foolish that nobody will consult them anymore:
"it's crystal clear that there's no better means than stupidity for countering the damage wisdom can cause."

And so the Gothamites govern themselves with stupidity. Building a new council chamber... without windows. Other similarly silly escapades ensue.

There is wordplay too, that adults will scoff at but children may need some explanation of:
"A whole dozen soldiers left the village in the morning... yet that night, no more than just twelve men returned."

Lots of short and trivial episodes, one to share with children. They have a fairy tale feel but of course don't take the usual path of fairy tales.

Some old-fashioned looking illustrations, a short collection of chapters that will entertain in their imbecility.

For children and adults alike.

With thanks to Netgalley for the sample reading copy.

The title, The Gothamites, is a collection of short stories. At first, reading the title, I mistakenly thought the story could be connected to Buddha, his birth name is Gautama Buddha. It was not so.. Soon, I realized that the Gothamites are odd people, but have a sense of humor. In a series of interconnected short tales, we learn about the curse of intelligence. The Gothamites, being the smartest people in the world spent much time away from home. The women decided that the men had to come home and decide to showcase their stupidity. to the world instead. Several tales hilariously illustrate their success. Quirky illustrations add to the mood.
Reading aloud with children produces the best results!


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for ARC.