Cabal the Protagonist- Character Reflection

JOHANNES CABAL THE FEAR INSTITUTE by JONATHAN L. HOWARD

I’m currently reading Johannes Cabal the Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard and its nothing but ordinary. In the book there is a land beyond sleep made up of dreams called the Dreamlands but not a dream itself. For millions of years people have explored this mystical land but never truly come back sane but now its Johannes Cabal’s turn to explore. Cabal is a necromancer which means he communicates with ghosts. If you don’t believe my definition then search it in the dictionary. According to the Webster English Dictionary a necromancer is a person who can see the future and talk to the dead like a witch. Being such a guy, people keep their distance from Cabal. Well anyways, he is employed to the Fear Institute, who by the way want to capture fear, to lead an expedition to the Dreamlands. Cabal being the person that he is thinks the Fear Institute’s goal of capturing fear is stupid and unmanageable; the real reason Cabal is going is to do some of his own research and the Fear Institute in his eye is bait for when he needs to run away from monsters.

            Cabal is a very interesting character. He’s intelligent, sarcastic, uncaring, and very anti-social with humans like Bose, Shadrach and Corde which are the three people he is guiding. The most interesting idea in the book is that according to the Dreamlands Cabal is who he wanted to be all along. This is because when a person enters the Dreamlands his exterior changes into the person he dreamt to be as a youngling. In the book Shadrach asks Cabal, “But what about you, Mr. Cabal? Why haven’t your clothes changed?” Corde then asked, “Because you’re already what you want to be, eh, Cabal?” Cabal then smirks and replies, “Just so”. This shows that Cabal is who he wants to be which rarely happen to the protagonist in a book.

            Being uncaring is what Cabal is. When Corde gave Cabal the Silver Key to open the portal into the Dreamland, Cabal shoved the key into Harwell, who was the Keeper of the Silver Key and a lunatic. Cabal shoved the key into Harwell’s forehead and killing him because Harwell himself was the gate to the Dreamlands. This is because only the truly poetic and loony people, which Cabal believes to be the same thing could open the portal. Cabal had no regret whatsoever in killing Harwell. When Bose in disbelief and horror yelled, “You killed him” (Howard 42), Cabal simply shrugged, “He was already dead. He’d allowed certain conceptual the morphs to take residence in his mind. He would have killed himself or been killed within a few months in any case. At least this way he served a purpose. He was a poet. No loss, then.”(Howard 43). Just by reading that quote, anyone with common sense could see he was cold hearted but also very intelligent. He is intelligent and as a reader I know this because the way Cabal speaks with such vocabulary; he had to be educated a great deal.

            I’m not done with the book yet but fairly deep. The story just gets more crazy and unexpected at the turn of each page. I recommend this book because it’s a book that will take you on an adventure and Cabal is character that you will be in a love-hate relationship with because of his character.