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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I got the funk,
By
This review is from: The Lexical Funk (Paperback)
I'll be short and sweet ... like this book. Lexical Funk is smart. Damn smart. The kind of smart that thinks of the answer before it knows the question. The kind of smart that thinks twice about four things at once. The kind of smart that already knows how this sentence is going to end. This book was smart enough to make me want to eat its brains. Did this book smart? A little. Applied some bactine and moved on. Is this book book smart? Or is it street smart? Would that be Main Street, Wall Street, or Mean Street? If you look at the word "street" for too long, does it start to look misspelled? What about the word "misspelled"? Where was I? Apparently caught in a web of words, much like Lexical Funk. What can I say, I got my funk on. You know what I'm talkin' `bout. The groove, the jam, the jelly, the preserves that preserve your taste for pomo lit. Hah! Tastify my friends, hallelu-yum. (Call back to the "sweet" in "short and....) Hah, hit me two time, hee-yah! Lay down that funky muzak, white boy, and read this postmod litter-a-chère. Postmod, pre-ascot, tight pants, bold prints. (Memo to self: Refer to last sentence for main character of my next novel.) This book is short in stories but tall in tales. Tones on Tail? Sorry, I turned tail on a Bauhausian tangent there.
Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this surprisingly insightful collection. The end.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ennui With Tape Hiss,
By
This review is from: The Lexical Funk (Paperback)
I traded books with the author on Goodreads. I never really know what to expect when I do this. The best one can hope for is to end up with a book that is readable.
Lexical Funk: A Triumph of Words goes beyond being readable and lands in the realm of entertaining. It's a short story collection and the stories vary in style from anecdotal to confession to silly. This is probably where my main criticism lies. I'm a big fan of flash fiction, but some of the stories in this collection seem to serve no purpose at all, and I could only think that they were there to augment the page count. Some of the longer stories, however, worked very well, and these are things I would happily read more of. There is a touch of humor in most of the stories, albeit sometimes a sad type of humor, meaning, while one is able to understand the humor, one also understands the depression from which that humor grows. For instance, even the subtitle, "A Triumph of Words," is sort of a bombastic proclamation of the author's genius. But I think this is all tongue-in-cheek, borne out of the frustration of being a struggling writer, rather than any sort of genuine egomania. This frustration is captured nicely in the 3-page story/introduction, "A Lexical Introduction at 21--Confessions of a Burnt-out College Student." One of the most fleshed-out stories is called "Those Who Imitate" about androids who want to be humans or maybe humans who want to be androids. "A Necrophiliac's Love Story" is another well-written one. Probably my favorite story in the collection is the emotional and self-flagellating "Angela Killed Herself" about a guy who still blames himself for the suicide of his ex-girlfriend. This collection could have been a lot stronger if Clausen had exercised more self-editing but, again, that is also part of the appeal of the book. There is a certain genuine quality to it that might have been lost if some of the things that typically make me cringe had been taken out. It's like a musician who's used to making home recordings. Sometimes this rugged quality shines a light on the music that just isn't there in a studio setting. If you're a reader who finds this kind of thing annoying, then this probably isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for a relatively short read of a good writer who shows great promise, or you are yourself a writer who wants to relive what it was like to write in your early- to mid-twenties, you might get something out of this.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming and thought-provoking!,
By Jennifer Rainey (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lexical Funk (Paperback)
Daniel Clausen definitely has a winner with his collection of short stories, The Lexical Funk. With just the right amount of humor and emotion, these stories examine unique characters and situations that will tickle your funny bone and break your heart all at once. Clausen has a frank but intelligent style that gives the stories a conversational feel, as though you're listening to a bar buddy with an English degree tell you about the woes of a friend of a friend, and it's splendid.
In addition to the stories, there are short Lexical Interludes that often break the fourth wall, addressing the reader and referring to the book itself, giving the whole work a nice meta touch. Definitely pick up this book if you're looking for engaging and intriguing stories that will stick with you long after you've read them. My personal favorite was the bizarre "The Spectacular Adventures of Dictionary Salesmen", which is just as fantastic as its title would have you believe. This is not one to be missed!
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