Jan's review
Adverbs: A Novel
by Daniel Handler
Jan's review
Adverbs: A Novel by Daniel Handler
Jan's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2007reads
recommended for: quirky friends
funny, wordsmithy, delightfully quirky. i like the occasionally intruding author's voice ("those are my wife's favorite cookies") in the lives of the characters -- kinda kundera-like in that way. the music references were fun, and i like the mixing of real bands and songs with made-up ones. but there was an authorial distance, a real arms-length narration the whole way through -- sometimes overly clever, snickety, let's have a looksee at what our hapless little characters are doing -- that prevented me from ever getting emotionally involved. i wanted handler to come out and play, but i got the feeling he was trying to hide in that voice. like, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. and the overlapping narratives, the vaguely 9-11ey volcanic "event," the impromptu (mostly too cutesy) digressions on the nature of love... all that seemed a bit concocted. i didn't get the feeling that anyone in this book, including the author, had really suffered, ever.
