joswatson
Transported into a bizarre alternative reality, the story follows the stranded hero as he struggles through a world of which he is not part in his search for a way home. Alice in Wonderland for adults, or improbable mystical allegory, the book combines black comedy with surreal adventure into a weird and fantastical entertainment.
With his life in meltdown in this world, Simon Cadwallader finds himself unexpectedly transported into an alternative reality. Hallucinogenic dream or a parallel universe? Either way, he arrives completely disorientated and with no memory of his previous life - not even his own name.
As he gradually gets his bearings, it becomes apparent that our hero is an unwitting participant in a game about which he knows nothing. Indeed, as the story unfolds, the absolutely pivotal nature of his role in this game becomes disturbingly clear, as does the multitude of attendant dangers.
There are of course other players in the great game, such as Miss Leggett, the Under Manager for the Company, and Norbert Dentressangle, the handsome and charming Frenchman who claims to be his dearest and most faithful friend. And then there is plethora of strange beings - including a clothes peg and a giant flatworm - who seem to be servants of the government and who are distinguished by their incessant exhorting of him to search for an enigmatic female Janus, The Woman Who Looks Both Ways. It is soon clear to him that he is central to all of their schemes, but what are they hoping to gain from him? And above all which of them have his interests at heart and which do not?
The four books of White Rabbit follow our hero as he pursues his quest to find the way home through this grotesque and contrary world, encountering bizarre people and creatures, both friendly and hostile - and it's usually difficult to tell which is which - who either guide him on his way or try to block his every step... and worse.