Wednesday, May 12, 2004

A novel without those tiresome verbs

A new French "novel"--more accurately a 233-page book of non-nonfiction--makes the news because it's written without any verbs: "I am like a car driver," the author said, "who has smashed the windscreen so he cannot see into the future, smashed the rear-view mirror so he cannot see the past, and is travelling in the present." (I add, using my modest brain capacity, that it looks like he's heading for a car wreck.)

Le Train de Nulle Part, English title The Train to Nowhere, is touted as being the Next Big Thing, after the book written without the letter "e" and its sequel with no vowel except "e."

A couple of quotes:
Those women there, probably mothers, bearers of ideas far too voluminous for their brains of modest capacity.

And just to prove that the author dislikes men and women equally:
. . . a "large dwarf or small giant -- a young buck with a gelled mop with ideas, at first glance, shorter than his hair, and not longer than the bristles on a toothbrush, perhaps shorter.

The reviewer in the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur called the book "disagreeable" and said that its descriptions of women are misogynistic. I wonder if the reviewer mentioned that the descriptions in these two passages are simply lame--assertions of modest brain capacity are "telling, not showing," and the author can't seem to land on a metaphor.

Attention, M. Thaler: You can't have a story without verbs.

M. Thaler says, "The verb is like a weed in a field of flowers. "You have to get rid of it to allow the flowers to grow and flourish."

Notice that he had to use verbs to make his point.

OK. I'm cranky this morning, but why is this guy collecting royalties?

Source: Walloworld.