I have been reading The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber for six weeks and after frequent nodding off and gnashing of teeth, I am now on page 91. That's right. Six weeks. Approximately 45 days. Ninety-one pages.
Someone please kill me.
I abandoned my original plan to review this book chapter by chapter because, quite frankly, that isn't possible. There is no coherent narrative structure to speak of. It bounces around between first person present (with frequent first person flashbacks in the past tense), third person past, and a new narration style I have named Please Make It Stop.
Characteristics of the Please Make It Stop narrative style are as follows:
* Letter format. To remind us of this, the letter writer randomly throws in his wife's name every third line, so that we don't forget this is a letter he's writing to her.
* Italics--unending italics across pages and pages.
* First person present tense which frequently flashes back to first person past tense (sound familiar?) and then back to present tense and perhaps to future tense if you're really lucky.
* Reallie badde ande fake Olde Englyshe characteryzed by switchynge the Letters "I" and "Y", addinge "E" to the ende of nearlie everye worde, and randomlie capitalizynge Nounes and sometimes Adjectyves and Verbbes dependynge upon what drugge Michael Gruber was takynge that evenynge as he sat downe to wryte.
If you're getting the impression that this narrative style is annoying and Fuckynge Impossyble to reade, you have more insight into the human condition than does Michael Gruber, so congrats!
I have to go hang myself now, but I'll be back shortly to describe the terrible, terrible characters who populate The Book of Air and Shadows.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Italics--unending italics across pages and pages."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds horrible. Italics abuse in books rarely look as artsy or important as the author wants them to be. You have my pity.
Thanks for the comment! Just checked out your blog and it's great. :-)
ReplyDeleteYup, the italics in this book are ridiculous. When the "letter excerpt" is five pages long, me thinks plain text is best...
Using italics in literature is sketchy at best. Sometimes it works really well. Using it to show the differences between "written" and "non written" rarely does. If memory serves, I liked Carrie, by Stephen King, because it combined in-verse newpaper articles, quotes, and the actual events without resorting to italics. (Amusingly enough, that's exactly how I distingish book quotes on my blog. Bah)
ReplyDelete