Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Anthologist

Over on Lorin's blog, she always does Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
* Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

Well, I'm not following those rules. Rules are for breaking, baby. But I did want to rave about the book I'm currently reading, The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker.

I read these two sentences last night and I thought, Everyone must hear this. I'm just saying, these are not picked at random. They're just too good not to share.

No, this is going to be an anthology where every poem you alight on and read, you say to yourself, Holy God dang, that is good. That is so good, and so twisty, and so shadowy, and so chewy, and so boomerangy, that it requires the forging of a new word for "beauty."

Which sums up the book pretty well. Chewy and boomerangy. I'm only a third of the way through, though. I hope it holds up.

6 comments:

Lorin said...

Laura, you rebel! =)

Chewy's a great word. I don't know about boomerany, though. It could be a "this was so good it keeps coming back" or a "it was like last night's leftovers and won't go away."

qoe said...

Here is mine:

"Think how insufferable bishops might be if they had to be both worshipped and feared."

Rheinhold Niebuhr, "Leaves From The Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic" (1957, p. 150)

qoe said...

... I only put one because the pocketbook format pages are so small and the font rather large on this page that ends this particular entry.

However, I could have put the very next line:

"I am afraid that is true of Catholic bishops."

But didn't want anyone to think it a snark...

LKT said...

:)

qoe, I was thinking of you particularly with The Anthologist, poetry lover that you are. I think you'll like it.

qoe said...

Well, thanks, Ma'am! I'll give it a look-see!

LKT said...

In a lovely twist of fate, there's a part in The Anthologist where they sing The Zombie Jamboree! I knew this was a terrific book.