"Anton Grübel and the Caliph's Treasure Trove"
After just twelve pages of Peter Strebel's adventure novel entitled "Anton Grübel and the Calife's Treasure Trove," the fantastic quest already begins. Four boys and their ringleader Anton Maier – nicknamed „Grübel" (the brooder) due to his tendency to endlessly ponder things – plus their smart sidekick Sarah suddenly find themselves in a labyrinth beneath a knight's castle during one of their nightly escapades.
Before they know it they are on an odyssey through the Middle Ages, encountering dubious Knight Templars, ruthless caliphs, magical beings both good and evil, mur-derous pirates and live mummies.
Perilous predicaments and numerous challenges
The plot's settings are spread far and wide, taking us to the caliph empire of Baghdad, to India and Egypt, and into dark dungeons and spooky catacombs. Yet the novel has a very realistic storyline. The children are all from broken or patch-work families – as is common these days – with the exception of Sarah, who grew up in a sheltered home.
The children's history teacher Gutknecht, alias Scharte, had initially brought their at-tention to a treasure purportedly located beneath the secret castle. After a few ex-ploratory forays in the "shadowy empire," Anton and his friends encounter the "Rose Sorceress," who grants them three wishes and sends them back thousands of years into the land of the caliphs.
There they discover how treacherous and arduous their search for the treasure will become as they face perilous predicaments and endure numerous challenges.
A bloody chronicle of Baghdad, Babylon
What seems at first to be a solid adventure novel with fantasy elements soon proves a surprisingly educational book spiked with historical knowledge. It may not always be easy for young readers to find orientation in the fast-moving plot and frequent change of setting. Peter Strebel was apparently out to write not just an ad-venture story with Oriental magicians, Egyptian phoenixes, and clever monkeys, but also a bloody chronicle of Baghdad, Babylon and ancient Egypt.
The adventurers roam from one treachery to the next, becoming entangled in political machinations at the caliph's court, witnessing torture and murder, and eventually coming to the realization that they will not be able to find the treasure without the help of adults. Thus they return to the present at the end of the first part without having accomplished their task.
Mustafa the Giant
In the beginning the individual episodes are nicely interwoven. The dragon Tara-munga, who embodies evil, can only be conquered with the sword of Semiramis. But the sword is hidden in a circle of flames in a chamber for which the only entrance lies under the sea.
The journey to the "Island beyond the Wind," where the children suspect the caliph's treasure is to be found, is undertaken aboard the ship of Mustafa the Giant, who like Homer's Cyclops has only one eye on his forehead. The children learn from Mustafa how to navigate by the stars, and slowly the lesson-filled tale begins to unfold. But the book unfortunately begins to sound like a lexicon of mythologies and the wonders of the world.
The author indiscriminately mixes facts with myth and legend. In the midst of this overload of information, the protagonists' characters remain undeveloped. The ring-leader Anton is the only convincing personality among them, and his small romance with Sarah is tenderly portrayed.
The book is told in a straightforward, easily understandable language – though it probably would have benefited from a few attempts at the epic. The rhythm of the narrative is sometimes monotone, sometimes too rushed. On a more positive note, the novel employs cinematic effects, is rich in dialog, and unfolds in short, quickly changing scenes. But sometimes the rapid succession of different settings is confus-ing and seems choppy.
Immaterial treasures
A few ideas are very successful. On the group's second journey to the past, Anton takes his laptop with him. The internet thus makes its debut in the ninth century: armed with a GPS navigation system and a search machine, the adventurers are able to close in on the treasure underneath the pyramids of Giza.
The computer also comes in handy in solving the last mysteries that separate them from the golden tomb of Alexander the Great. But here the author unfortunately over-does things again by entangling the philosopher Aristotle in the treasure hunt – a move that will only please the most patient of book worm readers.
A nice touch comes at the end when the five adventurers return to their old lives and are able to improve in their school work, which means their journeys have been worthwhile after all, and they even receive a raise in their allowance. But they never did find the caliph's treasure chest – a disappointment that is at least partly amelio-rated by the consolation that their experiences and the stories told constitute the real treasures in and of themselves.
Volker Kaminski
© Qantara.de 2006
Translated from the German by Christina White
Qantara.de
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