Baron Munchausen’s many strange stories may seem like outrageous lies, but we have his word as a gentleman that they are the absolute truth. He definitely did sail to the moon one time and discover dog faced men who do not die, but DO evaporate into smoke. He promises he really did shoot a stag’s head full of cherry seeds, and returned months later to find a cherry tree growing from the still living stag’s head. He once, he assures us, entered a town and took his horse to water, wondered why it was walking so funny, and then discovered the town’s portcullis had accidentally separated the beast’s front from its back, without either beast or rider noticing. Don’t worry – the Baron found the rest of the horse and managed to sew it back together with roots (and the roots even grew into a tree, so now he rides everywhere in the shade).
This is pretty wacky stuff, even by the standards of the 18th century (a century where, remember, it was still far safer to drink beer than water). Even the notoriously overstuffed movie by Terry Gilliam couldn’t contain all this craziness (though I was intrigued to discover that the 3 headed vulture ridden by Robin Williams is here…along with the Moon People’s propensity for throwing around giant sticks of asparagus). Told as a series of short vignettes (presumably while the Baron was getting drunk) the tales in this collection seem to have only one agenda: to be more outrageous than the tale that came before. While this in no way functions as anything like a single narrative (one story, even if it ends on a cliffhanger, rarely has anything to do with another) and tends to be a bit exhausting when taken in large doses, I still enjoyed these absolutely insane adventures. Not that I’d ever want to spend much time with the man himself…I mean, the Baron’s a monster. He spends the first few outings murdering animals in increasingly spectacular fashions, after which he graduates into blowing armies into little bits with, I dunno, snuff and strawberry bushes and a twinkle in his eye. Imagine if one of those REALLY portentous aristocrats from old BBC costume dramas suddenly started playing through life on GOD MODE and you might get an idea how this book veers so easily from the fantastical to the horrifying.
My favourite bit? Discovering, before the book’s start, a legal affidavit in which the undersigned gentlemen declare to all that they can vouch for the Baron, and no matter what your smug little brain is telling you, his stories are true true TRUE. Who are the undersigned gentlemen? Sinbad, Gulliver and Aladdin. Nice.
The book is divided into two sections (not unlike ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’) and I will say even the very avid readers will probably want to restrict their sampling to the first. The second volume follows the Baron as he leads a conquering expedition into various non-European countries and…yes, not especially pleasant reading in these (we can only hope) slightly more enlightened times. Stick to the bits when the Baron is getting giant eagles drunk in exchange for trans-Atlantic rides. Me like books.
Me Like Books 