Scarleth Samaniego Samaniego থেকে Tartokas 17127, Lithuania
It'd be all too easy to mock this book or dismiss it as the work of a college kid with too much time. Parts of this book did bug me a bit--like the various and sundry "lexical interludes," some of which literally attempted to motivate me to read on. Or the occasional misspelled word* or misplaced comma. Or (and please forgive me for being such a details-oriented nerd) the fact that the text of this book is not justified. (It's a small detail, but it really irritated me for the first 70 pages. Please, when you publish a book, don't forget to hit the justify button in your word processor first. It just doesn't look right otherwise.) However, the author's love for the written word, or for the way words sound when put together in just the right way, is obvious. And as someone who reads a lot, and in fact as someone who has basically made a career out of that hobby, I fully appreciate his love of language. Clausen does have a talent for writing, and some of his stories made me smile a bit. Others made me shudder a bit, too, like the one about the necrophiliac and the guy who tries to flush a man's body down a toilet. The man talking to celery was just plain weird. But what started out as a chore to read became a rather pleasant reminder of how fun words can be. So, thank you, Daniel Clausen. I particularly liked "Sages and Scarecrows," "Angela Killed Herself," and "The Spectacular Adventures of Dictionary Salesmen." They either repulsed me or made me laugh. Often both. And that's a good thing. *Case in point: In the Goodreads description of the book, it irks me to no end that the word "canon" is misrepresented as "cannon." I hope I'm not a complete jerk for pointing that out.
JF-YASta