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To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
1999 Hugo
Award Winner
Got it
from: Public Library
434 Pages
To Say Nothing of the Dog introduces
us to a new team of “historians”. Ned
Henry is badly time-lagged. Verity
Kindle has made a serious mistake. Lady
Schrapnell will stop at nothing. Princess
Arjumand is not impressed. The Coventry
Cathedral’s bird stump has gone missing.
And I’m still laughing about the Jumble Sales.
Irreverent referents
There are few
things that speak more directly to my lizard brain than goofy, stupid,
irreverence or absurd referential comedy and To Say Nothing of the Dog was pretty much 434
pages of lizard brain goodness. At the core
of my being there is a little dolt sitting on a couch giggling at this kind of
thing all day.
In my
review of Doomsday Book, I
mentioned that Willis was onto something good in the Dunworthy/influenza madcap
narratives. In To Say Nothing of the Dog, she takes that theme further
and masters the running joke, the bumbling slapstick, the bumbling historians, the
cat humor (“Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats”)...the swan
humor.
The
tipping point for me is Willis’ balance between a kind of subtle, unfolding,
quiet farce and blatant canoe-tipping, mid-night pet sneaking, multiple-imposter-séance
holding absurdity. This is to say that I
love that it was all happening at the very same time. It had almost had a Shakespearean air – as a
kind of Much Ado about Nothing type of
screwball comedy of errors (oh that’s another one too).
And I
think this is a bit more coherent than Doomsday Book. Though I appreciated that the lightness broke
up the intense tragedy of Kivrin’s tale, it gave it a little of that
two-books-smashed-together feel. To Say Nothing of the Dog loses the tragedy and relentless
death, but it doesn't lose the core of deeper human insight that allows the
book to transcend the purposefully, delightfully screwy romp.
Don’t get
me wrong, I still loved them both. I’ll
still re-read them both. But of the two,
To Say Nothing of the Dog felt a little more
polished (even if it’s not as emotionally gripping).
Did I
mention that swans have now vaulted to my list of funniest animals?
You would expect
me to talk about the net or historical accuracy and I should – this isn’t just
silliness, To Say Nothing of the Dog is built on
the same conceptual foundation that I loved in Doomsday Book – but I’m not going to. Well, hey…there’s a lot more I could and should say about Willis’ second Hugo winner
but you know if you’re not in it for the funny, then you probably shouldn't be
there.
Recommendation
I have
been trying to write this review for weeks now – staring at the screen, blank
Word document open. I've taken breaks
for food/sleep/work, but other than that, I've mostly just been sitting here
trying to think of something to write.
It’s not actually
so much that I can’t think of what to write, I could go on and on. The problem is really that I don’t want to
write it. I feel I've had one of
those intensely personal experiences with a book and I just want to keep it to
myself. If I talk about it, I have to
admit it’s a book and I can’t live in it anymore. I want it to be mine and I don’t want to
share.
Don’t read
this book.
HEP SCORE
Universe 5/5
Social/Political
Climate 4/5
Dialogue 5/5
Scientific
Wonders 4/5
Characters
5/5
Overall
23/25
Though I’ve
a few more reviews from the 90’s, I’m actually reading into the 2000’s. I’ve already finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. This coming week, I’ll be working on Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer and finishing The Yiddish Policeman’s Union soon on audiobook.
Ooh, you're on to Hominids. Looking forward to your views on it.
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