The Collector Collector

I'd love to do a blog where I spend all my time saying how shit it is. I'd write the snarkiest of snarky comments, with withering sarcasm and devastating commentary on the state of literature or political discourse. But, while I won't pretend I don't have a lot of time on my hands, I don't really have time to read shit books unless it's part of my degree (take 2). Books are like wine: there's too many out there to try to waste your time with the bad ones.

I might get around to reading something spectacularly bad, the book reviewing equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe Ann Coulter, I hear she's hilariously terrible to the point of sore sides. But for now, I think I'll concentrate on the good books. If you happened across this blog - no doubt by complete accident - please accept my apologies in advance for dull reviewing.

The Collector Collector is by British author of Hungarian descent Tibor Fischer. If you want a quick-and-dirty rundown of the book, click here. It's not an easy book to describe, with an unconventional narrator spanning through all of history who's actually a shape-changing piece of pottery. There's not enough space to explain why the book is so funny.

Partly it's the manner in which the narrator observes things - how many different types of objects he's seen and how he pigeon-holes them, for example ("It's (nose) eighty-eight or the begonia"). His obsession with earrings; one pair, for example, are perceived to be "in the shape of the sound of stolen guitars". The hilarious stories he relates to his co-protagonist, Rosa, of human misanthropy.

What I like most about this book is the way it balances cynicism and optimism. Sure, people treat each other like shit, in spectacular ways, with sadistic pleasure. But that's the comedy of life, isn't it? You have to laugh. And Fischer's strength is that in this book he makes us laugh, in a healthy, positive, optimistic way. And he's not so cynical that he won't allow a little romance into the plot or give villains their just-desserts. Even though there's so much pain in the book, it's the pain of watching a clown prat-fall (even if the prat-fall turns out to be lethal). You're reminded of Mel Brooks's definition of comedy which is 'watching you fall down an open sewer and die'. For all the suffering, you can't feel bad about it.

I guess what helps is that he details suffering not only in the present, but throughout the whole of history. It lets you look at the horrible things happening today and, even if you're paralyzed with helplessness at the scope of modern-day atrocities, you can shrug and say history marches on.