Gander Snatch

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta.

For me, this was a novel of unfulfilled expectations. At first glance
the book has everything: a title that alludes to Lewis Carroll’s
famous “frumious Bandersnatch”; a hypochondriac scholar (at
Newfoundland’s Memorial University); the kidnapping of an African
prince studying at Memorial; and Chinese and Québécois gangsters. All
this, and a previous acquaintance with this writer’s bizarre (but very
funny) novel Chemical Eric, led me to expect at best a caustic satire or
at worst a witty burlesque.

Unfortunately, it is neither. At times, to be sure, events are
preposterous enough to make one laugh and there are characters (Huw
Morgan, in particular) whose eccentric behavior endears them to us.
Again, at times, there are some witty, seemingly satirical, allusions to
Newfoundland life and to modern academia. (I especially liked the
mention of Philip Gardner’s pontificating “over the common room cups
about the ‘deep religious commitment of Huw Morgan’s
poetry.’ ”) But by and large, the plot of this novel is just plain
stupid. It is too much like an ordinary gangster story; the murders
themselves seem wholly gratuitous; the characters are unconvincing; and
the story becomes a series of ups and downs—a promise of excitement,
then boredom, another promise, another bore. The usual thriller reader
may find the novel interesting (though some may be put off by its
academic and literary trappings), but readers in search of more
scholarly prose will, I think, find it silly.