The House in the Cerulean Sea is a fantasy novel by TJ Klune, published in 2020. It’s about Linus Baker who works for a government department overseeing homes for children with magical powers. After many years of dutiful service, he is given a special job of inspecting a secret home run by one Arthur Parnassus. It is here that Linus has his eyes opened to the discrimination that magical people suffer, and has to decide what his response will be.

This book is a morality tale. Linus and Arthur discuss Kant and Schopenhauer – Kant a rules is rules man, and Schopenhaur a more easy-going, do as you would be done by, proponent.

Name checking these heavy weight philosophers does not reflect the tone of the book, which is more YA than intellectual tome. The story very much waves the flag for team Schopenhauer. There are nods towards team Kant, Linus struggling with his weight, for example. We see him trying to follow a diet at the beginning of the book. His natural inclinations lead him to food, when stern Kant’s ‘unconditional principle’ would say that you can’t just eat whatever you like whenever you want. But, this is a background detail compared to the emphasis on forgetting rule books, in favour of empathy as the basis of morality. Indeed, after spending time at Parnassus’ house and forgetting his beloved book of regulations, Linus gets slimmer without even trying. Does this mean you can throw off restrictions, live on the beach, enjoying a beach body without the pain of dieting?

Your response will probably depend on whether you are more Kant or Schopenhauer. I would humbly suggest, we need both, but for me, the no rules beach living is sadly a bit extreme. Rules might change according to altered circumstances, but that does not mean they are meaningless, since the temptation to follow natural inclinations to immediate, and very possibly unwise, gratification remains unchanged in changing times. Also basing morality on empathy is a bit risky when a proportion of people, known as sociopaths, have a constitutional lack of this ability.

So tricky topics. This book certainly touches on contradiction, but I have to say, at the risk of sounding like an old bore, it prefers to go in for lots of sentimental sweetness when maybe too much of that sweet treat gratification might not be realistic, or good for you.