Like the one in this picture, my copy of Eunoia has a sleeve on it which quotes Giles Brandreth. I’m surprised by that decision, because it seems to kick Bök’s book into the Countdown Companion subgenre, which is really not where it belongs. It may be that I just don’t watch enough early afternoon TV to know who Giles Brandreth’s true constituency is (aside from, between 1992 and 1997, the good people of Chester) but I just feel it undersells what is in fact a pretty amazing piece of stuff. Probably the hard truth is that they’ll sell more copies that way, but don’t miss it just because the market is an ass.
Perhaps it’s that word ‘verbivore’. It speaks to me of page seventy one of a Sunday newspaper supplement, where you find a selection of not-too-tricky puzzles. It suggests that Eunoia is a curiosity, a coffee-table talking point, a stunt. And since the basic premise is relatively simple, one might rashly assume that this isn’t such a big deal.
Here’s the wheeze: you write a book in five chapters, each of which uses only one vowel. Not tough enough for ya? Okay: you’re not allowed to use the letter “y” at all; you must use more than 98% of the available words (i.e. those with only one vowel in them). There’s more at The Times’s review.
Let me just try that for a second…
Wags arm all alarms at Aswan; the dam adapts and appalls a Khan. A chap adds warm sand and warps a wall. A man attracts harm.
Hmm. I can’t even imagine how I’d work on ‘u’.
And Bök’s book doesn’t just achieve this frankly onerous task, it (deep breath) transcends it.
Yes, I know, I used the t-word. Laugh it up.
Aaaaanway… I started – partly because of that sleeve – thinking that it was going to be an interesting enough exercise, but not expecting great things. Very quickly, though, I was drawn in. Eunoia absolutely goes beyond being a piece of verbal engineering. It’s rich, complex, and intriguing. If also perhaps mildly deranged.
Having just had e-Coffee with Charles Lambert, and having just met someone who knows Bök, I’m wondering whether I should try to get him to share a slice of digital brioche and talk about the book. Interested?