Chapter 1. Call Me Daniel
Call me Daniel. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little money in my bank account, and nothing particular to interest me in the world of mortals, I thought I would pick up a classic book and see a little bit of the literary world. It is a habit I have of chasing away adulthood and the drudgery of office life. Whenever I find myself involuntarily thinking about ditching town or becoming a beach bum; whenever the temptation to live in a Winnebago by the sea grips my soul; whenever I have the temptation to smack some smug coal-suited individual for his money barbarism, it's high time for another literary adventure. This is my substitute for a gambling addiction or alcoholism -- fine gentlemanly pursuits for some weary at heart, but not for me. With a cynical yet philosophical flourish, others go into the business world, I quietly start a new literary adventure, a new book review. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards words and literary adventures as me.
Chapter 2. On the Dignity of Book Reviewers
On behalf of the dignity of book reviewing, I would advance only the facts. But after employing the facts to their best effect, what reviewer would not be tempted, when such enabled with a not unreasonable surmise, to use conjecture to further their cause.
It is well known that in the celebration of classic authors there is a process of ego-massaging that has become quite popular. The typical novice book reviewer might consult the cellar of his imagination, looking for well-oiled phrases of modesty ("Now, I don't have a grounding in the classics..." "Well, I'm no English major but..." "It's not like I'm the most knowledgeable person, but...") These salted and seasoned phrases, anointing as they do a book review, sugaring a negative comment or downplaying a good one, as the sugar-coating of such medicines are often done to help the passage of a pill from the mouth to the stomach, help to maintain the dignity of the profession and the reputation of the reviewer.
But the question remains, does a dead man or woman's ego need any massaging? And are book reviewers really so dignified as their seasoned prose would make them seem?
Having no facts at my disposal and nothing but conjecture, I surmise that many of those who use these well-oiled phrases ("Well, I'm no English major but...") might actually be English majors, may actually believe themselves giants comparable to the long-dead "Greats", and may, in fact, find greater joy in abandoning their dignity from time to time when taking up the noble-yet-vulgar art of the book review.
Such a reviewer might say: "I am an English major AND the long, ponderous prose often left me brain-dead for hours at a time. The book should be subtitled: BRAIN DAMAGE FOR READERS."
I am not such a reviewer, but let me give some vulgar praise not meant to massage any egos. My apologies in advance if the praise is lightly salted: "After living cheaply on the thrift of modern prose, I enjoyed the long, ponderous writing the way someone might enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet. And like an all-you-can-eat buffet, it often gave me diarrhea."
Chapter 3. Chasing the Literary Masterpiece
"Do you know the literary masterpiece, reader? Have you seen it? If you skinned your eyes twice daily to sharpen their focus, would you be able to see clearly a literary masterpiece in a sea of vulgar paperbacks? Are you game for the chase? Are you game to wade through detail after detail...the boring details of nineteenth-century whaling that make schoolchildren eat their desks and scorn their teachers, put M80s in their mailboxes out of spite or flaming bags of dog manure on their porches? Are you game for the game of hunting the great literary masterpiece?...Well, I am, reader. Aye, aye! and I'll chase literature round Good Hope, and round the horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give it up. And this is what ye have shipped for, reader! to chase that fabled story on both sides of land, and over all sides of the earth, till it spouts golden prose. What say ye, reader? Will ye sharpen your eyes, hone your wit, hold fast to your pages, and have your bookmarks on ready? Are you brave enough to weather the rough pages of a thousand useless details to find that literary masterpiece? Are you game for the chase?"
Chapter 4. The Old Used Bookstore
Entering that gable-ended used bookstore, you found yourself in a narrow room, crowded with bookshelves, book stacks, boxes of books, more a place for discarded paper than a repository of knowledge. Such unaccountable masses of paper, must, mold, it seemed the nostalgic creation of some book-loving-or-hating Damien Hirst. But what confounds you the most in this bookstore is the heavy weight of unread and unloved things in the world, an orphanage for the dreams of liberal arts majors, and the used bookstore owner, some dreary soul, burdened with the lumpy, soggy, blotchy forms of the world's unloved.
Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that you find yourself marveling before.
"Buy something?"
"Huh?"
"Do you intend to buy something?"
You stare at the man, deaf and dumb at his question. Of course, you don't intend to buy anything. That's not the purpose of the used bookstore. Instead, you intend to stare, sympathetically at this monument to human failure...as one would a Damien Hirst exhibit.
"Buy something?"
Isn't your sympathy enough? And when the winter comes and the flowers freeze and die, the bookshop-keeper too will pass away, and another, equally old and pitiable sapling will spring forth to take its place.
The old man holds up an old, moldy copy of Moby Dick. "How about this one?"
You hold up your e-Reader, and as you do, the old bookstore keeper appears to you suspended perpendicular, dissected into three pieces, in three adjacent boxes with his mouth open, as if to be saying perpetually into a void, "Buy something?"
Chapter 5. 30 Years to the Chase!
"Oh, reader! It is a mild, mild day. On such a day, I did write my first short story. An elementary student, yes, an elementary student. Thirty, yes, thirty years ago! Thirty years of continual writing! Thirty years of privation, peril, and solitary penmanship! Thirty years of making war on the mysteries of the human condition! Since then I have not spent one week without a short something being written. How for thirty years I have feasted upon nothing but concise prose and weary, used pages of long abandoned books. Ah, ah, Daniel has furiously, foamingly chased his prey -- the literary masterpiece -- more a demon than a man. A fool--fool--old fool Daniel has been. Why the chase? Why palsy the hands with this foolish chase? Behold, reader, locks of grey in the hair and nothing to show for it but tears and rejection slips. I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though every rejection had seeped into my bones. Stand close to me, reader! Look into these eyes. Do you see the imaginary worlds waiting to get out? Branded, I am with such imaginary world! And thusly, do I give chase to the great literary masterpiece!"
"Oh weary writer, grand old soul, after all your toil, why do you still give chase to the literary masterpiece? Away with me! Let us fly to a pub or some other diversion to get your mind off of this foolish chase! Away! let us away!—this instant let us go for a pint or a snack, some delirious debauch to sooth the savage writer's soul."
But the writer's glance averted. Like a palm tree in a hurricane, he shook.
"What nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing drives me forward; what hidden lord and master; that against all inclinations to just chill and share a beer with a bro or take time away to play some X-box, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself toward that far off creature -- literary masterpiece? Aye, thirty years to the chase...and thirty years more if need be!"
Chapter 6. Post-Review Interview
Interviewer: So, how do you feel about this book review? Do you feel you nailed it?
Daniel: Perhaps...I think the review was fine. The book at times was a slog, so it was nice to do a creative review that mixed some of the elements from various chapters...and doing it in five or six sections helped keep me fresh throughout.
Interviewer: Was it a good book? Anything lacking?
Daniel: More Ishmael and Queequeg, please! I wish I had gotten a bit more of them at the end. The book started off strong with these characters, so I was disappointed that it was more of Ahab and Starbuck's story at the end. I also wish someone had listed all the chapters that were just about whaling that I could cut out and still enjoy the book.
Interviewer: Are you going to do another long review like this soon or do you plan to take some time off?
Daniel: I think before I take on another long book review like this, I'm going to do a training montage, Rocky 4 style, in a very cold place. I'm going to play the song "Hearts on Fire" continuously while staring down a copy of War and Peace and doing sit-ups. At the end of my training montage, I'll run up a mountain and yell at the top of my lungs..."Tolstoy!...Tolstoy!"