Wednesday, January 07, 2009

a short history of electric halibut's troublesome nether parts

One more thing while I'm here - is it just me or is the current vogue for self-consciously krayzee novel titles starting to get a bit irritating? Gabriel García Márquez and the other magic realists probably started it, but it all started to get a bit silly with Louis de Bernières and novels like The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (not to mention that bleedin' mandolin business).

So now we've got such rib-tickling yet - hey! - thought-provoking fare as A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, Baking Cakes In Kigali, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Kalahari Typing School For Men and all manner of other smart-arsery.

Can we stop now, please? Nobody likes a good laugh more than I do....except perhaps my wife....and some of her friends....oh yes, and Captain Johnson. Come to think of it, most people like a good laugh more than I do. But that's beside the point. What we need is a return to sensible non-wacky novel titles like, oh, I dunno, Bleak House, or Nausea. Then I think we'd all be a lot happier. I know I would.

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