The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear

The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear

articleissues
in-universe = September 2008
incomplete = September 2008
plot = September 2008
citations missing = September 2008

Infobox Book |
name = The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear
title_orig = Die 13½ Leben des Käpt’n Blaubär
translator = John Brownjohn
author = Walter Moers
illustrator = Walter Moers
cover_artist = Walter Moers
country = Germany
language = German
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Eichborn Verlag
release_date = 1999
english_release_date = 2005
media_type = Print (hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 3-8218-2969-9 (first hardcover edition)

"The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear" is a 1999 fantasy novel by Walter Moers. It details the numerous lives of a human-sized bear with blue fur. It has similarities with "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" in the frequent occurrence of excerpts from Professor Abdullah Nightingale's "The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs" within the narrative. It also has similarities to both "The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and "The Phantom Tollbooth" in its description of fantastical adventures and travels. It is essentially a children's fairy story written for adults.

Plot introduction

"The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear" describes the first half of Bluebear’s set of 27 lives. The story progresses from Bluebear’s first memories of life, floating in a nutshell near the giant Malmstrom through his career as a Congladiator (a professional liar), to his time spent on the "S.S. Moloch", the world’s largest ship. The novel intersperses Bluebear’s narrative with excerpts from "The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs" by Professor Abdullah Nightingale, a teacher Bluebear encounters in his sixth life (Life 6).

The plot is set in the fictional continent of Zamonia (location of several other novels by Walter Moers) on our own Earth before the "great descent" in which Zamonia and many other continents sink beneath the waves. Many of the creatures encountered by Bluebear are taken from myths, folktales and prehistory, among them Gryphons, Maenads, Trolls, Yetis, Pterodactyls. During the narrative, the great city of Atlantis disappears from Earth, an event witnessed by the narrator.

Plot summary

Bluebear's Life 1 begins with the young seabear floating in a nutshell in the north Zamonian sea, next to the Malmstrom, a giant whirlpool that all the world's sailors take care to avoid. Bluebear is saved by a diminutive crew of Minipirates, who adopt the bear as their good-luck charm. Aboard their tiny craft he learns much of sailing and knot tying, but before long he has grown too large to remain aboard, and the Minipirates must set him ashore. Bluebear's first life ends with him standing on a deserted shore watching the Minipirates sail off.

Bluebear's Life 2 picks up where the last left off, a pattern continued throughout the novel. Upon exploring his new island home further, Bluebear discovers a group of Hobgoblins, who raise Bluebear to celebrity status due to his fantastic displays of crying. Eventually repulsed by this, Bluebear builds a raft and sets off on his own.

Life 3 finds Bluebear at sea aboard his self-made raft, where he is befriended by a pair of "Babbling Billows", talking waves. This life also marks Bluebear's first encounter with the "SS Moloch", the world's largest ship. Bluebear helps ease a giant Tyrannomobyus Rex's pain by pulling harpoons out of its back, and the grateful whale deposits him within swimming distance of another island.

Bluebear's Life 4 sees our hero on Gourmet Island, a fantastic isle filled with delicious foodstuffs. Bluebear's last meal is interrupted by the discovery that the island is a giant carnivorous plant that ensnares passers-by, fattens them up and eats them. Bluebear is saved by Deus X. Machina, a Reptilian Rescuer who happens to be passing by. The fourth life draws to a close as Bluebear flies off on Mac's back.

Life 5 details Bluebear's experience acting as a navigator for the near-sighted Mac, assisting the Reptilian Rescuer in his daring rescues. (Many of the Zamonians saved in this chapter by Mac and Bluebear turn up later on in future lives.) The life ends with Mac entering retirement, depositing Bluebear at the entrance to the Nocturnal Academy, the headmaster of which owes Mac a favor.

In Life 6, Bluebear is taught all the knowledge in the world with the aid of the seven-brained Nocturnomath Professor Abdullah Nightingale and his intelligent bacteria. The seabear meets several creatures who will become important to him, among others his best friend Qwerty Uiop (a gelatin prince from the 2364th Dimension) and Fredda the Alpine Imp (a hairy creature with a crush on Bluebear), as well as crude Knio the Barbaric Hog and annoying Weeny the Gnomelet. Upon leaving the Academy, Bluebear is led astray in a series of caverns by a tricky creature known as a Troglotroll, whom Professor Nightingale had told Bluebear not to trust. Bluebear calls upon his newly begotten knowledge to make his way out of the caves and into the neighboring Great Forest.

Life 7 finds Bluebear wondering why the lovely Great Forest is deserted. A blue she-bear with amazing cooking abilities and a similar taste in literature appears, but she is only an illusory disguise created by the Spiderwitch in order to catch Bluebear. The bear frees himself from the web and flees the giant spider. Just as his strength gives out, our hero stumbles upon a fortuitous Dimensional Hiatus, the same sort of genff-smelling portal through which Qwerty entered our universe. Bluebear leaps through the portal.

The Dimensional Hiatus deposits Bluebear into the past in the 2364th Dimension, where he sets off a chain of events that lead to Qwerty falling into a Dimensional Hiatus and into our world in the first place. Faced with a group of angry 2364ers, Bluebear jumps into the portal after his friend and comes back out in our world, with the Spiderwitch nowhere to be seen. He then sets out across the Demarara Desert.

Life 9 details Bluebear's treks across the desert in the company of nomadic Mugg people searching for the legendary mirage city Anagrom Ataf. Bluebear helps the Muggs trap and inhabit the city, but upon finding it already populated with the ghost-like Fatoms, he sets the Muggs roaming again, this time in search of a city called Esidarap S'loof. Leaving their company, Bluebear spies a Tornado Stop and decides to wait there to catch a ride to Atlantis on the other side of the desert. A tornado soon comes along, but Bluebear is sucked into its center to discover he has aged nearly eighty years in the process.

In Life 10, Bluebear and the other elderly denizens of Tornado City search for a way to escape the whirlwind. Bluebear is reunited with a man he and Mac once saved, and discovers a madman in the tornado is responsible for the strange practices of the Muggs. The bear realizes that the tornado stops for one minute once a year, so he and the other old men count backwards for a whole year in anticipation of the next stop. They dig through the tornado wall, aging in reverse as they make their escape. As the men go their separate ways, one tells Bluebear of a strange path to Atlantis.

In Life 11, Bluebear travels through the discarded head of a Megabollogg on his way to Atlantis and meets a number of bad ideas, including the deranged Insanity. Barely escaping a dip in the brain's Sea of Oblivion, Bluebear becomes a dream composer, "playing" the head's "dream organ" in order to purchase a map of the head's interior so that he may find his way out. He escapes the head just as the roaming giant returns to put his head back on his shoulders. Bidding goodbye to his newfound friend Bad Idea 1600H, Bluebear advances towards the gates of Atlantis.

In Life 12, Bluebear works his way up the Atlantisian professions tree, starting as a sweeper in a spitting tavern all the way up to the coveted King of Lies in the Congladiator tournaments. Bluebear chooses this last career upon seeing the Troglotroll become the reigning King of Lies. Bluebear defends his throne for over a year, and his final battle is against his Congladiating idol himself in an epic 99-round Duel of Lies. Bluebear's boss asked him to throw this last fight, and when the bear refuses, his boss attempts to sell him into slavery on the "SS Moloch". Bluebear's escort is one of the Wolperting Whelps that was saved by Bluebear and Mac. Out of gratitude, he takes the bear below the ground of Atlantis, where Bluebear is reunited with Fredda. The seas on the Invisibles' planet are made of electricity, so Bluebear elects to remain behind with the Troglotroll while Fredda and her Invisible friends pilot the city of Atlantis into outer space. The Troglotroll deposits Bluebear into the hands of the "SS Moloch's" crew.

Bluebear's Life 13 is in many ways a culmination of all his previous lives. On the "SS Moloch", he discovers its captain is in fact the renegade Zamonium, whom he had learned about in his school days. Professor Nightingale makes a reappearance, and battles with the Zamonium in a war of thoughts while Bluebear attempts to capture it. Upon thus freeing the crew, Bluebear discovers that many of them are Chromobears, members of his own species. The "Moloch" becomes trapped by the Malmstrom, and the crew is saved by the fortuitous arrival of an army of Reptilian Rescuers. Bluebear is about to fly away on Mac's back when the Troglotroll leaps out of the shadows and takes his place, mimicking the bear's voice. Bluebear falls into the Malmstrom, which turns out to be a Dimensional Hiatus, and he is saved by the arrival of his old friend Qwerty Uiop on a flying carpet. Together, they sail off to rejoin the rest of the crew on the shores of the lake where Atlantis used to be.

Ending

Bluebear’s sprawling yarn draws to a close in his final "half-life", wherein he meets a real-life she-bear similar in every way to the one he hallucinated in Life 7. He begins a new life with her, but hints that further adventures await them both in the future. These words echo the novel's opening lines quite nicely:

“A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen-and-a-half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest. A bear must have his secrets, after all; they make him seem attractive and mysterious.”

Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

Moers' Captain Bluebear character originally appeared in short segments of the "Sendung mit der Maus" ("Programme with the Mouse"), a half-hour German children's television show. During these sequences, a puppet Bluebear would spin ridiculous pirate yarns, all of which he claimed were true. "Käpt'n Blaubär – Der Film" ("Captain Bluebear – The Movie"), a traditionally animated movie based on the TV show, was released in German theaters in 1999, coinciding with the novel's original release.

A musical version of the novel premiered in October 2006 in Köln, adapted by Heiko Wohlgemuth and music composed by Martin Lingnau. [ [http://www.blaubaer-musical.de/ :: Blaubär Musical ] ]

Release details

*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1999. ISBN 3-8218-2969-9 (Hardcover)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär" (Numerierte Luxusausgabe), Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1999. ISBN 3-8218-5117-1 (Hardcover)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Goldmann Verlag, München 2001. ISBN 3-442-41656-6 (Paperback)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Goldmann Verlag, München 2002. ISBN 3-442-45381-X (Paperback)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 2002. ISBN 3-8218-5159-7 (Audiobook)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Goldmann Verlag, München 2005. ISBN 3-442-46127-8 (Paperback)
*"Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär", Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 2006. ISBN 3-8218-5423-5 (Audiobook, read by Dirk Bach)
*"The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear", Overlook Hardcover, USA, 20 October 2005. ISBN 1-58567-724-8. Hardcover.
*"The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear", Overlook Trade paperback, USA, 29 August 2006. ISBN 1-58567-844-9 Trade paperback.

ources, references, external links, quotations

* Walter Moers
* Jack Bartlett Walters
* [http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051023/news_lz1v23bear.html A review of the work]
* http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/features/bluebear/main.htm


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