Set in the mythical kingdom of Liralove, The Princess and the Whiskheads follows the discovery by princess Juliana of strife between a band of bohemian malcontents, called Whiskheads, and the common people. The Whiskheads, who weave wires through their brains, via the ears, and then shape the protruding wires into sculptures, are aesthetes. They don’t work and, as squatters, occupy massive, derelict, and impractical buildings called Architectons erected during a past golden age of Liralovian art. The commoners want to tear down the Architectons to build a much-needed sewer system.

Juliana sides with the Whiskheads, falling in love with one named Jan. But when he is trounced by a jealous courtier, the Whiskheads revolt. The commoners respond by destroying some Architectons. Regrets follow. All decide to forget the sewers and rebuild the Architectons.

Fables offer clever morals arising from ironic plot twists exposing human folly. Here Russell Smith offers no twist and no moral. There’s folly, but no irony in the destruction of the Architectons. This is a social-studies lecture. The Architectons are Smith’s symbol for the arts. The patchy narrative conceit with which he hopes to impress us is part sophomoric Wildean “art for art’s sake” aestheticism and part hackneyed theory that art alone can fuel a society.

Forget that Smith’s use of such a functional art form as architecture to pronounce that art should be absent of function is laughably and unintentionally ironic. There’s silliness enough in his suggestion that government can nurture art. And then there’s the fact that this particular piece of art is so poorly wrought, with abysmal cadences, a Harlequin romance vocabulary, and a structure as lumpy as Lego blocks.