I read this as part of my ongoing endeavour to appreciate Edward Gorey's work. Clearly, this is perverse - either I like it or I don't, so why force myself to be exposed to something that's not immediately grabbing me? I dunno - there's something about Gorey's style that appeals to me, it's the content that I don't always get. In fact, sometimes I'm not sure if there is any content to what I'm looking at. Is it the triumph of style over substance? I don't think that's it. When I like Gorey, I like him very much. Perhaps I'm somewhat out of phase with him. Sometimes I pick up his 'vibe', sometimes I don't. I think it's my annoyance at the later, rather than enjoyment of the former, that keeps me trying - perversity!

This book is a collection of Gorey's imagined postcards by the Dogear Wryde [anagram] Postcard Company and the text is minimal, mainly present only as titles for the cards. To start with the less good (more out of phase?): Interpretive Series: It's a lizard-thing in gloves and boots expressing various nouns through the medium of mime. OK, now I've written that, it actually sounds quite funny, but looking back at the postcards, it's not all that much.

The two Q.R.V. series are marginally better, and have the added interest of some nonsense verses in the form of mendacious advertising slogans which, again, sounds actually rather funny, but what the hell has that got to do with an anatomical sketch of a spine or of pen nibs or of toilets?

The best, and which actually made me laugh twice (I counted) was Menaced Objects, with various inanimate objects in a state of perilous fear, the predicaments of the grape and of the soda craker provoking my jocular ejaculations.

Neglected Murderesses was my second favourite series. Macabre and strangely empowering (apart from Angelica Transome, she's tragically creepy) to see these confident, if homicidal, women.

Hmm... writing this review, requiring myself to think a little more deeply about the drawings and their captions, is somewhat elucidating. The contrast between the odd and the mundane has a Zen koan-like quality - stop trying to find the rational meaning and be open to finding the absurd in the everyday? Hardly an original observation on Gorey's work, but perhaps one I hadn't fully appreciated before. Maybe I've now got a new way of looking at Gorey that will take me further into his world. ( )