Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The other, stupid, book I've been reading

The review caught my attention, made me jot down the title and, eventually, recently buy it. (In truth, the purchase was a bit of a mistake. I clicked Confirm without reviewing my order. The book was not in fact on my must-read-now-and-at-any-cost list, but on the I'll-get-to-it-someday list, and a proper review of my order would've postponed this purchase for a month or two. Let this be a lesson to me. But at least now, I've gotten it over with.)

Ugh.

While the premise of Glyph, by Percival Everett, is indeed playful, the humour of its execution wears thin within a couple dozen pages. "Genius" (or "accelerated") baby Ralph reads at a more advanced level than I do, but he chooses to remain mute. He becomes an object of scientific study, and is kidnapped, then again, and again. He narrates his story as a 4-year-old, applying a deconstructive reading to his experience, grappling with semiotics and psychology.

Footnotes everywhere, most of them unnecessary. Diagrams. And really bad poetry.

Very tedious. And it makes me feel stupid. Not subtle. I can't really appreciate an author who makes me feel stupid. Not clever.

I read a lot of literary experiments, games, in my university days, but I no longer have time for this shit.

No comments: