| Title | : | Figgs \u0026 Phantoms |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0844671533 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780844671536 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 152 |
| Publication | : | First published June 17, 1974 |
| Awards | : | Newbery Medal (1975) |
Figgs \u0026 Phantoms Reviews
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I've read this book many many times and have the ampersand from it tattooed on my wrist. Yet somehow I never realized how terrifying this book is. Also, there is truly no other book quite like this. Amazing.
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Maybe when the Newbery club gets around to the year this was honored, and I reread it, I'll appreciate it better. Now I see a dark, surreal, artsy fable. I admire it, but I really don't like it. But I feel I should, even could, in the right frame of mind, with the right discussion mates.
The original (?) cover is brilliant. A B&W faceless tween girl, holding a pink and orange miniature desert island, complete with palm tree and Uncle Flo. The other covers that I see here are nonsense and to be avoided; cover them while reading if you do read from them.
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Reread. Still don't get it. Waiting for others in the discussion group to chime in. Do think this cover the most helpful. -
This book was originally reviewed on my blog,
Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing.
Figgs and Phantoms by Ellen Raskin won the Nebery Honor in 1975. Four years later, she won the Newbery Award for The Westing Game. I read The Westing Game several years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It was wonderfully complex and the characters were simply delightful. (More on that later). So, I was actually quite excited to read Figgs and Phantoms.
Alas... Figgs just didn't work for me.. It was quite the disappointment. I started this book, not really knowing what to expect about the story itself, but looking forward to it, because I had so enjoyed The Westing Game. Sigh.
Figgs and Phantoms is about a family, The Figgs, who are all wildy quirky, except the youngest daughter/niece, Mona. She is decidedly normal, hates her family's weirdness, and is terribly embarrassed by what she believes the people of her town, Pineapple say about all those crazy Figgs.
I thought that Raskin was trying too hard with this novel, and as a result she missed the mark just about everywhere. Every single character has something weird, wacky, crazy, or unbelievable about them. All of them, except Mona. (She's just bitter about life and everything in it. Rather than make her quirky, I'd say she's just a teenager.) It got to be a little bit too much for me. Her mom, Sister Figg Newton (Newton being her married name) tap dances. All the time. Everywhere. Her uncle Truman, the human pretzel and sign maker (but horrible speller). And the list goes on and on and on. There was too much for me to believe it. Sometimes I'd look at the book and want to shout at the author- Enough already! I get it! They are weird. Can we move on please?!- Or something like that anyway...
The majority of the book focuses on Mona and her angst. I think it's supposed to be about her struggle to find her place in life, and accept her family as they are but it always just felt like angst to me, and not the good, realistic kind. Just the really annoying, get over yourself already type. Raskin makes hints about what she is supposed to be learning, and she gives us subtle clues here and there, but by that point, I was so fed up with Mona's whining and general annoying-ness that I didn't care. I just wanted the book to end. The only person Mona feels close to is her Uncle Florence. Everyone else is ridiculous, embarrassing and needs to just stop so that Mona can stop feeling embarrassed to go out in public. But, Uncle Florence is sick, and getting sicker.
The Figgs believe that when you die, you go to a place they call Capri. It's been written about in a journal passed down the family. The family meets together periodically for a night of reading from the family journals about Capri, a ritual they call 'Caprification'. Mona, or course, barely participates but when her uncle Florence dies (not really a spoiler, because it gives strong and obvious hints on the back cover) Mona knows she must find Capri so she can either bring her uncle back, or live with him in Capri. Even more weirdness ensues.
Nothing in this book was very believable to me. I had a hard time believing that much of what happened, and in the order or way they happened would be possible. Very often we were taken from point A to point F and just expected to believe that this was the natural progression of events, never mind the fact that we missed points B-E in the process.
On a positive note, I did enjoy several of the characters and their quirks, especially in the beginning. The secondary characters are often delightfully fun and I actually really enjoyed their time on the page. Truman's misspellings were fun (even one sign where he misspells his own name) and I especially liked the idea of Romulus and Remus Figg, the Walking Book of Knowledge and the Talking Adding Machine, respectively. I did wish the secondary characters had been more a part of the novel, and had been more fleshed out. I don't think I would have been as annoyed by the amount of quirks these characters had it they had also had more personality. But no. They were written as if their unique trait was all there was too them. It was how they were defined, described, and we didn't get to see any more than that. I do recognize that much of this is probably because that is how Mona sees them, but knowing why doesn't make it any less annoying.
All in all, I'd probably say this is one to skip. I don't know that I would really recommend it to very many people. I read it because I enjoyed The Westing Game, and because, as you (should) know, I'm trying to read the Newbery list. But, it's one I feel I could probably have done with out. There wasn't anything really special about it. The rating came really easy too. I finished the book, looked at it a moment, and then said- Meh. -
A reissue of the 1974 Newbery Honor winner, Figgs and Phantoms tells the story (dubbed “a mysterious romance or a romantic mystery”) of Mona Lisa Figg Newton, a misfit living in fictional Pineapple, with her crazy family, both the Figgs and the Newtons. The only person she feels that understands her is her Uncle Florence (Italy, of course). But when he suddenly departs for what the family believes to be their afterlife on a place called Capri. Florence is determined to find him and goes on a journey of literature, music, and self-discovery.
While that sounds all fantastic and magical, the book itself is dated. There is a definite psychedelic tinge to the story, and topics such as sex, pornography, and racial slurs are mentioned (the N word is used). Additionally, younger kids may not get silly names and puns (will they laugh at her uncles named Remus and Romulus?).
Adults may pick up the book due to the Newbery Honor Medal on the front, but may very well be taken aback by the language and topics covered. With so many other wonderfully magical books available to kids today, this one should be far down the list of choices, despite being a Newbery.
(Reviewed for Puget Sound Council) -
Figgs & Phantoms was and wasn't what I expected. I thought it would be quirky and funny, and it was. I didn't expect it to mention pornography or have a discussion about the highly-charged "N"-word. (And Raskin doesn't abbreviate it. However, the context is the main character's horror of it being used in the title of a Joseph Conrad novel.)
The book was whimsical and zany, but it managed to be more complex and grown-up than I expected--both silly and smart.
I also loved the typography. There are reproductions of signs, documents, asides of the townspeople interspersed with the regular text (like a Greek chorus), and artwork by the author on the part openers. -
I really, really enjoyed it, even though, like The Westing Game, it took about 15 pages to get into it. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the N word was used a lot. Nobody is called it, which is good, but it's because they keep bringing up a book with the word in the title, but I feel like there was really no reason why it had to be in there, especially in a book that's meant for children.
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Everyone remembers the first time a book blew their mind. When I was in fifth grade, this one went BOOM inside my head and completely changed my tastes in literature. This is like "Twin Peaks" as a YA novel- eccentric family members, surrealistic mindflights, skewed nostalgia and deep philosophical musings in a small town full of quirky bystanders. When you read this book as a kid, you'll like it, but you won't get it. The "mystery" Raskin promises in the prologue is never entirely addressed or solved in the novel. Instead, the clues are there for you to find yourself, by digging into the artistic and cultural references peppered in the book. Not until reading Joseph Conrad as an adult did I figure out the actual importance of Conrad's "Nigger of the Narcissus" (whose controversial name, and controversial renaming forms part of the book's narrative) to the mysterious Figg family cult. Highly recommended to slightly weird kids and the slightly weird adults they grow into.
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Mona was miserable. You would be too if your family consisted of: Sister Figg Newton (Tap Dancer, Baton Twirler, and also your mother); Truman, the human pretzel (your uncle); Aunt Gracie Jo, the dog catcher, and her son, Fido the Second. To name a few. The only person Mona really gets along with is Uncle Florence, the book dealer. And he keeps hinting that he may have to leave Mona soon to go to Figg family heaven, a place referred to as "Capri." But where is Capri, and why do all the Figgs go there? To find her uncle, Mona knows she must find out.
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Oh why is Ellen Raskin such an incredible author with only 4 books! I can't quite put my finger on why I like her books so much when I don't like other people's books that are similar. It's just she can write about what is seemingly nonsense yet pull you into the story and make it real nonetheless.
Figgs and Phantoms was different than what I thought, altogether very peculiar. It reminded me very much of Meet the Robinsons with Mona's wild ex-circus family! Heck they even have twins in their family too! Anyways it started off a bit bizarre and then grew normal, or as normal as Raskin's books get, and then grew very bizarre as and then it went back to normal. What a ride! I thought the story as a whole was touching and real through all the bizarreness. Mona thinks the worst of everyone, thinking her town all hate her family when really that is not the case at all which she discovers. In just a short time we are able to get to know Mona as this smart and business minded girl who doesn't care to read but nonetheless loves books and is embarrassed by her family. And in just a short time we are able to see her change.
Also the names in this book are so great! The town of Pineapple, Mona Lisa, Figg Newton, they're just too great. And her illustrations are beautiful :)
(One thing I must add to my very random review is, I didn't understand why the heck Mona assumed the worst of Fido all the time??? I felt like we didn't have any context or explanation of why she would think that of him.) -
Even for a mid-1970's YA novel, this book is weak on plot and sloppy in execution. There is also a lot of petty crime that goes on in this book that the reader is expected to approve of because the characters doing it are #quirky. Quirky in this context means they behave oddly, if not maniacally. There is a squicky teen cousin budding romance subtext amid the petty fraud that simply doesn't add to the story. Then there are the flights of fancy that take place on the Isle of Capri, which try for a landing in the sunny pastures of High Toned Jungian Allegory, but instead land deep in the Swamp of Confusing Nonsense Lifted from Art School Films. The main character is whiny and petulant, and her family are of the type who are defined by their eccentricity.
The humor is forced, the surrealist elements are banal, and the wordplay is infantile (Capricho (sp) = caprice, fantasy). Not recommended. -
I was interested in reading more of Raskin's books after reading The Westing Game and after reading reviews of other books my boys and I have been reading where people made comparisons to Raskin. I loved the first half--super quirky, weird characters (the main character's name is Mona Lisa Figg Newton. You gotta love that!) She comes from a crazy family of Vaudeville performers, every one with their own crazy names, quirks, and place in the community. There are all sorts of mysteries about all of them; you can't wait to find out the why's behind them. But for the most part, you never do.
The second half though more into a child's dealing wtih death. It goes from quirky weird, to just weird. Or a 70's acid trip. It just went downhill for me. -
I don't know. This was disappointing. I think of The Westing Game as a masterpiece and because this novel was published several years earlier, perhaps Raskin just hadn't really achieved full maturity as a writer yet.
I want to reread it as the beginning was very boring to me and I think I missed some important plot points, but the story was brimming with so many interesting ideas about books and what exactly they mean to different people (is it an escape? is it a business venture?) that just weren't developped fully and instead we were just given too much of the quirky and offbeat.
Grade: B- -
I am a huge Ellen Raskin fan and I love her books... except for this one. I haven't read it in a few years, but I remember definite feelings of dislike. It was really weird. The whole "Capri" thing was so... Oh, I don't know; it was just weird! We'll leave it at that.
Also, I would not call this a children's book. Especially since she mentioned (at least twice) that her cousin was obsessed with sex/porn.
There were enjoyable and humourous parts (it is Ellen Raskin after all!) but overall it was majorly disappointing. -
And interesting novel in terms of its time period: it seems that Raskin was influenced by 70s psychedelia. I felt like the search for "Capri" was one long acid trip.
They mystery in this novel was very shallow...I kept looking for clues and was waiting for the solution to be revealed.
And as one reviewer pointed out, this book was not very funny. It seems somewhat incomplete, as though it was a first draft. -
What a disappointment from Ellen Raskin! There is barely a message or purpose to the story. Three entire chapters are comprised of a weird dream that the main character has, with little significance. There are random references to porn & sex in relation to another character--totally unnecessary and stupid. The only thing I liked about it are the quirky side characters--like the tap dancing mother.
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It's no The Westing Game (5 stars!), but any Raskin is worth a read. Mona's grief is real and sad and scary. The "dream" sequence in the second half of the book is a little much for me, but I can see how it would appeal to others.
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You know how the elders in your life will sometimes just offload whatever they have on hand to the younger generations? My spouse and I have learned that there's only one answer to that question: why yes, of course we'll take [that item/box/pile], what a generous offer and of course we'll make use of it! But that often winds up the preamble to hauling the [item/box/pile] to the garbage or, if we're feeling sufficiently generous with our time, Goodwill.
One such offload was a bag of (mostly) books that included this Newbury Honor recipient. The blurb was intriguing and hey, it's won a prestigious literary award! What does it take to land one of these in YA anyhow? That question comes up because Figgs is not quite young adult literature and would never be tolerated as non-young adult literature.
The story is about an extended family of twee white people with suitably precious and eccentric habits. That's not quite as annoying as it sounds; at its best YA provides the reader someone to identify with, and subject to the prior critique about only the white people, there are some interesting, identifiable character types here. And the heroine Mona Figg is relatable, has an authentic emotional life, and is not treated as a cheap or superficial teen-girl stereotype.
Yet the story doesn't quite work as a unitary narrative. Raskin experiments with short chapters consisting of even shorter vignettes. It adds to the cuteness without depth or crossing the line to satire. If this were adult fiction such tactics would be quickly dismissed as cheap. But would this help engage younger readers? Only if younger readers are particularly interested in plumbing Joseph Conrad. Or spending the entire third act on a sometimes psychedelic vision quest. Too cute to be adult, too pretentious to be YA.
With that critique, parts of Figgs are truly moving. This is a coming of age story, and Mona's transformations (some of which border on disturbing) are risky but authentic. I have no doubt that some readers would love Figgs and Phantoms. But I can't recommend the book outright. -
This is not an easy book to review. I'll start with 4 stars simply because it's Ellen Raskin. If you can get your hands on an original hardcover with the 70s artwork, do that- it really adds to the experience. Obviously this can't compare to "The Westing Game" Raskin's masterpiece; I also have a deep love for "The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)" which I have read at least two dozen times, and "Figgs..." doesn't compare to that, either. In some ways I wish I had read this ten times as a kid because the weird muscle memory that kicks in when you reread a beloved classic (even when its just a classic for you, and not the whole world) is just absent on this one; for me, anyway. That all said. Poor Mona. She is a pretty normal grumpy teenager in a family that is even more bizarre than their strange little town. And then her favorite uncle dies (he's only 45! I'm 45.... is that supposed to be old?!) and she grapples with that in the way that people often visit their recently departed loved ones. It's all weird and trippy, and sad and moving too. I'm not sure that my 11 year old daughter would like this; it doesn't seem timeless to me in the way of TWG or TMDOL(IMN), but still Ellen Raskin is a wonderful and *very* creative writer and illustrator... and I wish she had written even more. (The only one I haven't read is "The Tattoed Potato and other clues" and I'll get to that one soon.)
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I’m not sure if this review is going to be of this woefully overshadowed novel or of my own state of mind over the last 109 days. Death is all around us, obviously, and often a subject or theme in our works of art, but never are you more aware of it than after you have experienced a particularly painful loss in your own life. Since the death of my father, I’m pretty sure that every single thing I’ve read has engaged with a deeply significant death. And fathers, I’ve encountered dead fathers everywhere. Sadly, none have them have moved me forward in my grieving in the way I expected literature to do.
But Ellen Raskin, people. Will someone build a statue of Ellen Raskin in my front yard? Let’s put aside the perfect fact that one of the characters is named Florence Italy Figg. The way Raskin deals with death, the unbearable loss of a father, and the power of narrative to explain or even create life is as good in its context as Faulkner and Morrison, my all-time favorite geniuses, in theirs. I don’t even think this statement is my usual hyperbole (although I cannot lay claim to a sound mind right now). What was this Newbery winner the year this beautiful absurd masterpiece was only an Honor book? -
Lately I keep thinking about the part where Mona tries to imagine a horse in the afterlife of Capri, but it turns into this weird bulbous monster because she can only remember the parts that everyone thinks of when they think of a horse, not the parts in between. Is there a more potent metaphor for creative work of any kind?? I first read this at 7 or 8 and there were a lot of parts I didn't get, but I got that right away.
Capri is a realm of pure creative energy, beautiful and full of potential but also lonely as hell, mysterious, frightening, and never quite what you expected. Now that I write books for a (dubious) living, I feel like every new project is a trip to Capri and you're just trying to make it out with your sense of self intact. My favorite Raskin book. -
Hmmm... this was a weird one. The words and characters are wild! (AWESOME vocab).... yet the characters were sort of rush-developed: it felt like I was jumping into a movie sequel where all the background was already developed in the previous movie and this is just reminder of who's who. I could deal with all that because of all the delightful quirk!... but then there was the ABSOLUTELY unnecessary multiple references to pornography and I was completely bummed! (As if the author buried a useless detail in the book to test to see if people really read it.) I totally don't get it.
But funny family and some deep thoughts about the meaning of life/death. -
Mona Lisa Newton is a member of the Figg Newton family of Pineapple. An odd assortment of individuals with circus like talents all searching for their own slice of heaven, or as the Figg Newton's call it, Capri. Mona is an unhappy family member, wishing for less attention and more normal behavior. Raskin creates colorful characters but the plot is rather skittish and difficult to follow at times. The varied signs peppered throughout the book add humor but younger readers may not appreciate the intended puns. This book would be more appropriate for young adult readers as opposed to intended intermediate audience.
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• 1975 Newbery Honor Book •
I was excited to read this because I really love "The Westing Game", but this is one strange book. I was really thrown off by the odd names, and just the whole oddity of the family. So it went from a weird book with quirky characters in the first half, to Mona dealing with her uncle's death in the second half. It went from weird to depressing. Something just wasn't working for me in this book... It almost feels like a first draft. I also wasn't thrilled that Mona's cousin looking at porn, and Mona stealing. A disappointing read for me. -
First encountered this book in elementary school in the late 1970s while burning through the list of Newbery books. It stuck with me, but, couldn't remember the author or title. Wasn't that hard to find it though; not so many YA books about rare bookstores or Joseph Conrad fetishes.
After re-reading, must say this was darker and more thought-provoking than I remembered. Many reviews talk about the big shift between the halves of the book and I agree. But in the end was still happy to revisit. -
Mona Lisa Figg is full of teenage angst against her village weirdo family, all except her Uncle Florence. When she realizes that she's going to lose him, things fall completely apart for her, and she decides on a desperate search for the lost island of Capri, to which the more eccentric members of her family believe they go when they die.
This one started out strange in a quirky and good way, but once Mona embarks on some strange fever dream quest, the quirky and good starts to fade and we're left with just plain strange. Disappointing, really: Westing Game this is not.
