Lori L (She Treads Softly) 's Reviews > IBID: A Life

IBID by Mark Dunn

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4592109
's review
Mar 15, 11

Read in January, 2011


I have been looking forward to reading Ibid: A Life by Mark Dunn. It is the imaginative biography of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged man. After opening with several letters between the author, his editor, and his brother, that explain what happened to the actual manuscript, the entire story consists of the endnotes (the use of "footnotes" is obviously a pun) to the missing fictional biography.

I found Ibid hilarious, and really did laugh out loud several times. It tackles, tongue in cheek, the addition of all sorts of real historical references while obliquely telling Jonathan Blashette's life story by inference, through endnotes. Using real historical references and people to tell the story made Ibid even more successful and accessible for me. Most of the endnotes themselves are quite funny.

While telling a story through endnotes seems like it might be awkward, I thought it really flowed smoother than most of my experiences in reading endnotes and was a fresh take on another way to tell a story. The fact that many of the footnotes were long and rambling segues added to the humor.

My one suggestion would have been to make some of the endnotes more closely resemble those you see in other biographies. Often biographers will discuss the problems with previous biographies or mention discrepancies between them - but that's a minor quibble. All in all, I really quite enjoyed Dunn's Ibid, although I also know it will not be a good choice for everyone.
very highly recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/

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