Here’s how good James Morrow’s THE PHILOSOPHER’S APPRENTICE gets, for a long while: It’s more accessible and memorable than his THE LAST WITCHFINDER, and that book was one of 2006’s very best.

This fantasy of “mischievous alchemistry” is told by Mason Ambrose, a philosophy doctorate student who gets an unusual job offer after blowing his dissertation: He’s asked to tutor a teenage girl at her home on Blood Island, off the Florida Keys. Specifically, he’s to restore the “moral compass” she lacks following a hit on the head.

The pay’s great, the locale is paradise, so off Mason goes. Before he meets the Lolita-esque Londa, he meets her mother — and his new employer — Edwina. She’s a strange one, as witnessed by their immediate surroundings, which include a tree that shudders and bears hallucinogenic fruit, and an feathered iguana that talks.

That’s the least of the wonders Mason discovers on the not-so-uninhabited private isle, but to reveal any more would be to the detriment of your enjoyment. Suffice to say, Morrow’s work is like THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU fornicating with MY FAIR LADY.

Divided into three distinct sections, APPRENTICE leaves the island behind after Part I, as Mason and Londa’s relationship morphs, to say the least, with the former feeling like an involuntary Dr. Frankenstein. The two are forced to encounter the “greatest antiabortion protest in history,” which all comes to a head in the final third.

Morrow is a true original, and APPRENTICE is a work of bawdy brilliance — right up until that final chunk, which stumbles under the weight of its own outrageousness. Prior, a manageable level of political satire is kept in check, but then grows too heady and thick. Again, to give details would spoil the discoveries, but to say assassination plots, pineal glands and the Titanic are involved is safe enough.

The author’s gift for turning a phrase remains in full force throughout; in his hands, even the mundane deserve highly imaginative descriptions, such as “knuckles acquired the look and texture of uncooked bacon.” Big ideas and big laughs also are in no short supply.

All in all, taking in THE PHILOSOPHER’S APPRENTICE reminded me of this three-sentence exchange from page 160:

“I applaud your ambition.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“The last thing on my mind.” —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE LAST WITCHFINDER by James Morrow