Review by NRoach -- That Place of Knowledge

[NRoach]

[Following is a volunteer review of "That Place of Knowledge" by Philip Alan Shalka.]

---

1 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

That Place of Knowledge, by Philip Alan Shalka, is a short story about an autistic boy and his assistance dog, Sabre. Honestly, I'm unsure of how I should approach this review. Normally I try and work out what a book is trying to be and evaluate it based on how well it achieves that goal. With That Place of Knowledge, though, I'm genuinely a little stumped.

From the content, it seems as though it should be a children's book. A boy and his dog travel through a secret portal to another world where they have adventures is a solid synopsis for a lot of books for kids. Here, though, I can't imagine any children really getting invested. Much of the narrative comes out in the form of diatribes about the nature of learning and knowledge, which is an important lesson for children to learn, but not in this format. It could be seen as a middle grade book, but it's a bit too short for that and lacks the more developed prose that's required.

Upon reading the acknowledgements and the “about the author”, it starts to look as though That Place of Knowledge was written in therapy by and for the author, who is non-verbally autistic, and that complicates matters all the more. If this book was simply written as a therapy exercise, then I feel it's unfair to judge it as a true short story, but at the same time, very few readers are interested in reading a therapy exercise.

The book itself is written from the perspective of Sabre, the assistance dog, who accompanies his owner, into another world of knowledge and learning where they meet Aristotle. From this point on, it suffers gravely from “talking head syndrome”, where Philip and Aristotle simple bounce lines of dialogue at each other, with no action, no description, no emotion, nothing. I briefly forgot that Sabre, our point of view, even existed in the story. The writing is generally childlike, with very short, simple sentences that give the entire story a staccato feel. Description is all but non-existent, leaving the reader frequently stuck in a blank, white room with a couple of disembodied heads floating in it.

I'm torn. This is obviously not intended to be the next Shakespeare, and in some ways I feel as though it's fundamentally private and that I shouldn't ever have even read it. Ultimately, though, it's my job to advise the potential reader, and I have to give That Place of Knowledge one out of four. Few people will want to read this book, but I don't think that's the point of it at all.

******
That Place of Knowledge
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like NRoach's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Charlaigne]

Thanks so much for this very thoughtful review. You're so right about the non-existent description and the lack of emotion, both of which irked me.