Off with their heads!
I am ridiculously excited -- my copy of Robert Olen Butler's Severance is in at the library. Back in my pre-library school days when I still had free time in the evenings, I attended a reading of his when he was promoting his previous book. I think someone asked the "What are you working on now?" question, and he told us about this collection of short-shorts he was writing for a French publisher. Basically, each one is the last thoughts of a famous decapitated person, such as Marie Antoinette or Nicole Brown Simpson (something I didn't remember about the O. J. trial). As the review in Bookslut notes, the inspiration for this is based on a couple of bizarre facts: "After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes." The second: "In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute." That works out to 240 words total.
Anyway, I was completely intrigued to hear about it at the reading, to the point where I even asked during the book-signing how I could get ahold of a copy. But alas, it was in French, and I didn't think my skills were such that I'd get the full reading experience. So I am ecstatic that I'm going to be able to read it in English this week.
Added bonus, also via Bookslut: NPR's website has clips of him reading from the book, including the ones on Medusa, Sir Walter Raleigh, and a chicken. You know what I'll be doing after work today.
Anyway, I was completely intrigued to hear about it at the reading, to the point where I even asked during the book-signing how I could get ahold of a copy. But alas, it was in French, and I didn't think my skills were such that I'd get the full reading experience. So I am ecstatic that I'm going to be able to read it in English this week.
Added bonus, also via Bookslut: NPR's website has clips of him reading from the book, including the ones on Medusa, Sir Walter Raleigh, and a chicken. You know what I'll be doing after work today.
posted by Madame Defarge at 1:56 PM
2 Comments:
That has to be one of the coolest books ever written. Shall I put it on my list? =) Can we request that defenestration be his sequel?
I'm halfway through Black Boy now, which I'm very impressed with, despite the fact that it's also disturbing. At least he has a sense of humor with his tales of racism and child abuse.
We are also starting Transcendentalism soon, which I barely remember from high school, and for which all of the definitions I've found come with the disclaimer of "easier to identify than to define." Good lord.
Defenestration is an excellent idea for a book (she says, returning the dictionary to the shelf)!
I haven't started the book yet, but the layout is just as awesome as everything else about it -- each chapter is one page, and the text block is shaped like a guillotine blade. You can't get much cooler than that.
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