tisbutehname scribbled: Tender. Suspenseful. Funny. Uncertain. Justin Bryant has written this book in the way that South Africa was at the time period and in many ways still is. His prose is succinct, point of view non-intrusive.

tisbutehname scribbled: Mark Mandell's Diary of a Twentieth-Century Elizabethan Poet is a funny, and at times, slightly disturbing account of Percival Hogsbottom, self proclaimed heir to the throne of "Contemporary Spenserian Sonnets". Raised under the bizarre tutelage of Mr. Pennywort, who sheltered him from television, new music, and regular speech, and grandson to a rich developer of a rectal suppository insect repellent, Percival, or Percy, is never dissuaded from this antiquated lifestyle and is free to pursue his poetry. But what would a poet be without love? In Percy's case, unrequited love. Enter Lulu, white trash queen of southern Florida, the bad mouthed, illiterate, and promiscuous apple of Percy's eye. There are two time lines going in the book, both from Percy’s point of view, one which takes place after Percy and Lulu are married, and one that describes how Percy met and, sort of, wooed her. Mandell alternates the two instead of what could have been a difficult linear story for readers. It allows us pleasant unraveling realizations (There are no big plot twists or atom bombs, not here) that deepen our curiosity about Percy and the other characters that inhabit his life. The curiosity is enhanced when the deceased Edmund Spenser (a real poet by the way), to whom Percy has so much affection for, (hence Spenserian Sonnets) appears from beyond the grave to offer his two cents about the story, whether in warning, self defense, or pity. It was with Spenser's excerpts that I began to look at this story at a different angle, one which isn’t necessary for the enjoyment of the book, but nevertheless occurred to me half way through it. What is the role of "The Poet" in America today? The role of Poetry? I could say the World but I've just read a book on Haiku in which the forward, by Faubion Bowers, says about Japan, "In no other country is poetry more deeply respected, or so pleasantly ubiquitous." The publishing date of that book was 1996, not 1520 or 1711, when some of the classic Haiku writers were writing. Yet even after all those years, Haiku and Haiku writers are still crucial to the foundation of Japanese literature, Haiku is even transcendent of literature and is ingrained in the culture. Here in this book is Percy, tormented but perfectly happy to unfulfill his unrequited love, when in fact, as Spenser points out in his first note, most poetry deals with realized love. Percy, the poet, resides in an area where people can't spell and literally can't understand him. He is dressed and speaks in an outdated language (poetically), is physically unfit and so emotionally sensitive that he weeps at the slightest upset. These are all things that make Diary of a Twentieth-Century Elizabethan Poet so funny, but at the same time make me wonder if these are stereotypes of a poet, if indeed this is how a poet seems to be to others in America. Mandell is writing through Spenser but aims this comment at himself:

tisbutehname scribbled: Continued from earlier: "I died, a long time ago, before this age in which nothing is sacred and everything that came before it is nothing but a source of material to mock. I don’t know how you people can stand it—leaving yourselves with nothing to believe in." I have a lot of curiosity when it comes to this book, about Percy, and now about Mandell, who is either sympathizing with my notion of "What is the role of the Poet in America?" or is flat out pulverizing and humiliating all things poetic, including Percy. Does Mandell agree with Spenser in that last statement, or is he a part of the problem? Read this great and odd book, laugh, shudder, laugh some more, but keep that question in mind.

tisbutehname scribbled: If the movies “King Kong” and “Young Frankenstein” had a book for a child, Monkey See would be that book. It is a wildly schemed, crazy literary experiment involving monkeys, which is, not surprisingly, inventive and unpredictable and completely hilarious. The protagonist (if you will), Ed the talking monkey, is created accidentally by a mad scientist and know it all, Dr. Cogitomni. Although there is a plot of sorts in Monkey See and we find ourselves reading about Ed and Dr. Cogitomni in a world that has seen the appearance of business savvy apes and war mongering orangutans, it’s what author Walt Maguire does once he has created this world scenario that makes the book stand out. It’s part recipe book for monkey meals, has chapters that answer important questions concerning how to throw successful parties with monkey, ape, and human guests, is fifteen percent “Mad Scientist: for Idiots”, and just for flavor it’s a parenting guide when you’re having trouble raising that evil genetically engineered teenage girl spider monkey. Don’t be surprised if at some point during the reading of Monkey See you turn it over to examine the front cover, making sure you didn’t pick up the wrong book and continue reading on the same page by mistake. Each chapter leads to an even weirder chapter, the weirder the funnier, the funnier the better, nonstop. Read it, you’ll see. Walt Maguire has written (and illustrated) something here that is so very different from an everyday novel, and if he has to subject his characters to cataclysmic property damage, broken monkey hearts, and (purposefully) poorly chosen last words, inhumane or not, damn the ethics and let him work!

tisbutehname scribbled: It’s a battle of attrition for Chicago radio DJ Tom Zagorski and long time on-air partner Richard Lawrence. In a vain corporate attempt to get the duo to quit, relieving the company of their fat severance checks, the once prominent talk radio show now features less talk and more commercials, as well as news read from day old papers. Zagorski’s atomic bomb of insubordination backfires and in no time he ironically becomes a Wall Street golden boy and big shot for the second largest media conglomerate in the world. As Zagorski and Lawrence navigate their way through New York City’s maze of CEOs, conservative hotshots, bad journalists, liberal loudmouths, and vomit inducing cab drivers, trying to piss them all off and play them against one another isn’t as easy as it seems. Every absurd scheme the two come up with only results in more praise and more unwanted attention. Author Richard Kaempfer mixes humor with sadism to great result: each success, when Zagorski only wants failure, brings with it bigger laughs, more outrageous characters, and ‘nothing-good-can-come-of-this’ situations. Severance is a carefully balanced satire about post-deregulation liberal and conservative on-air personalities, as well as the behind the scenes puppet masters, that saturate the media with their opinions, but don’t be surprised when you see animal rights activists, film producers, and Celine Dion dressed as nun. You name it, Severance has got it, and Kaempfer, through the admirably indifferent Zagorski, exposes the weakness, hypocrisy and foolishness in each and every one of them.