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.
If you've read it, I'd love to hear what you thought about it! Let me know!