This was for me the epitome of a forgettable book. (I posted this review on amazon only a few months after reading it, and apparently the book left me so cold that I boxed it up with others bound for the 2nd-hand bookshop immediately afterward.) I cannot remember a single thing about it, unless that room full of watermelons is in this one. I scanned online reviews of it and not even synopses of the various stories in the book rang a bell. Completely forgotten in less than 6 months. Literary propofol. I mean, you can't recall being on the table under anaesthesia but blacking out in that way confers a benefit. And there might at first be alarming gaps in your memory of a long session down the pub but at least you remember having had a good rousing argument even if you don't remember what it was about, and by afternoon you'll have remembered how inexplicably delicious that punnet of chips was. But The Word Book? not a trace, nada, rien, squat. A reminder, as if I truly needed one by now, that fiction having the seductive properties of non-linearity, Dalkey publication, translation, and ambiguity isn't simply by virtue of those qualities worth one's time.

I'm guessing that Word Book was nicer than having surgery but not nearly so nice as a pint of Guinness..

My review appears in Belletrista:

http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue7/reviews_9.php ( )

Hmmm, didn't get into this until about half way through - I didn't understand the early stories, didn't particularly like them, and it is the kind of writing that makes me feel unintelligent and slow, which doesn't endear me to the author. But the last few stories grew on me, I liked the imagery, the dreamlike quality, and the twists and turns. They are also slightly less pretentious! I would like to reread this at some point. ( )