Borgel by Daniel Pinkwater

The thing about Daniel Pinkwater's novels is that they're welcoming - for everyone, but especially for weirdos. For two or three generations now, he's been the writer saying to quirky kids that there's a place for them in the world, that the world is bigger and stranger and sillier than they imagine, and that, no matter what they may think, things will actually work out pretty well if they pay attention and find the places they belong.

There's usually only an illusion of conflict in Pinkwater's worlds: there are "bad guys," sometimes, but they're usually juvenile pranksters or grumpy misanthropes, or just creatures who do bad thing because that's who they are. And the heroes may oppose those people, or be stymied by them, now and then, but that's not the point of the story - that's not what's important.

What's important is living and exploring and learning - finding out about the world, talking to new people, trying new foods, going unexpected places. There's no writer better for that sense of infinite possibility that a smart preteen wants and needs more than anything: the sense that there is definitely going to be a place for the person she will become, and that there will be friends and acquaintances and random goofballs who will help her to find that place and to be that person.

I haven't re-read any of his older books in a while - there were two big omnibuses around twenty-five years ago, first 5 Novels and then 4 Fantastic Novels, which collected most of his novels up to that point - but I got a copy of Fantastic for Christmas, and will use that as an excuse to read those books over the next however many months. (And maybe see if I have a copy of 5 Novels in the house after that.)

So first up in that omnibus was Borgel, a 1992 novel about Melvin Spellbound, his elderly relative Borgel, and their trip through time-space-and-the-other in a 1937 Dorbzeldge sedan. As usual for a classic Pinkwater novel, the main character is a preteen boy, probably smarter, quieter, and quirkier than his agemates, who is not always said to be fat but probably is, and who gets pulled into unexpected adventures and strangenesses of the world that he never suspected existed. 

In this case, first Borgel came to live with his family when Melvin was small - claiming to be a distant relative and a hundred and eleven years old, though he keeps claiming to be a hundred and eleven every year since then. Borgel speaks odd languages to odd characters at the local diner, takes the dog for long walks, and seems to like Melvin best of the family, introducing him to Beethoven and telling usually-obviously-made-up stories of his past.

Before too long, Borgel takes Melvin (and the dog, Fafnir) on a roadtrip, down an Interstate that runs across time and space. It's a picaresque adventure of a kind, though, as usual for Pinkwater, danger is generally minimal and humor is high - it's a sequence of oddball places and people, culminating in a transformative encounter with one of the "twenty-six immensely powerful energy bundles that maintain the shape and quality of reality." (Namely: The Great Popsicle.)

It is goofy and fun and full of random moments, with all of Pinkwater's inventiveness and open-heartedness on display. A Pinkwater world, again, is a welcoming, wonderful, quirky one, with wonders around every corner - not necessarily the kind you expect, since you may end up having a dinner consisting only of grilled onions - but wonders nonetheless. And Borgel in particular ends with a lovely evocation of communion and togetherness, one of the best crystallizations of that core Pinkwater philosophy in his books.

My recommendation: read Pinkwater. If you have young people about you, read him to them, or leave his books around and maybe make vague imprecations that they're too young for those books, or that Pinkwater is probably "too weird" for them. If you don't have young people, you'll have to just read his books yourself. I wish you joy of it.