Recent Reading: Freddy’s Book

John Gardner has two stories in one book. The first story is about Freddy, a teenager named Freddy who has some sort of an endocrinological problem that has made him a giant. He mostly lives alone in his room where he has been working on a book. That is the first 60 pages. The rest of the novel is the story of Freddy’s Book — a tale set about Lars-Goren Bergquist, an eight-foot-tall knight in 16th-century Sweden, who helps his cousin Gustav Vasa to assume the throne and then goes out on quest to destroy the Devil. Toward the end of the book, much of the story dwells on the nature of evil and how it relates to the good. If you appreciate Gardner’s focus on what he called moral fiction and the use of symbols you will enjoy this fairly short (230 pgs) book. I did.