"luminous prose" = too many goddam words
"a tour-de-force" = threw it across the room
"a triumph" = huge advance
"a commanding new voice in fiction" = girlfriend's brother wrote it
"sublime" = didn't know what the hell was going on
"unflinching artistry" = lots of boobs and stabbing
"grabs you on page 1 and won't let go" = stuck reading it on long flight
"achingly beautiful" = really long sentences
"brilliant" = smarty-pants
"profound" = written by old person
"a story for the ages" = ripoff of Tolstoy
"taut" = limited vocabulary
"finely wrought" = namby-pamby
"best of the year" = only thing I've gotten around to reading
"deeply imagined" = makes no sense
"incredible range and breadth" = all over the place
"ingenious" = confusing
"radiant" = already been blurbed by people more famous than me
"lyrical grace" = either is girl or writes like one
"rich language" = not enough paragraph breaks
"devastating" = dropped it on my toe
"goes straight for the heart" = sappy
"trenchant satire" = poop jokes
"clever" = thinks it's being clever
"fiercely resonant" = author looks hot in publicity photo
"a small gem" = will sell five hundred copies, tops
"first-rate" = grad school pal
"bracing" = fits nicely in box headed for used bookstore
"tightly coiled and edgy" = contains fucking
"humane" = contains murdering
"you'll feel forever changed" = you will never get those hours of your life back
"transcends its genre" = stuck in its genre
"affirms the human spirit" = contains scene of winning big game
"searing...glorious...a fury of dazzling transcendence" = I'm just stringing random words together now
Please...add more.
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27 comments:
"J.R. Lennons heartfelt and in-your-face Literary blurb translation guide presents a mind blowing paradigm shift in post-9/11 Western literature that is sure to leave its mark on future generations of writers, cooks and game-designers."
-Blinde Schildpad (whose Twitter-based sci-fi porn poetry chapbook Dangerskull/Gevaarschedel: a bilingual memoir is slated to be published in March 2014)
ha haaa!
Not since Homer....
"Just like literature, only smaller."
liminal = accidentally left it at the bus station
Here via @elizmccracken; these are great! Except I think "transcends its genre" sometimes means "obviously a genre work but well-written/by someone I like."
"astonishing" = cover is glossy instead of matte
Hilarious stuff. Check out Joe Queenen's "Astonish Me" essay, in the Times a while back.
very good, Sung, ha!
LOL
Glowing = used it in fireplace
The romancelandia translator:
"A sweet story" = no sex
"Witty and smart" = no sex
"Beautifully written, a love story of depth" = no sex
"Deft plotting and sparkling characters" = where the hell's the damn sex?!?!
"Entrancing"= I didn't really read it because there was no sex
"It kept me turning the pages..." = ...because I couldn't find the f$($* sex. Who does she think she is, *&*& Tolstoy?
"You MUST read this book!" = sex
"Delicate, Moving, and Yes, Funny" : I haven't read it. Fart jokes? Fingers (/legs) crossed.
"Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think" : I read somewhere the footnotes are quite entertaining in their own right.
Your list is pretty airtight as is.
"bildungsroman" = main character is younger than me
My favorite has always been "uproarious" - You might not laugh, but you know you're supposed to at some point.
haunting = someone dies
pellucid = someone drowns
galloping = someone gets thrown from a horse
Thanks for the bright spot on a gray morning! Love it.
"Deeply felt" = astonishingly narcissistic.
"Command of craft" = you wouldn't believe how many revisions of this I had to read.
"moving" = something moving almost happens
"sprawling" = way too long and boring as f*ck
+ my fave from this list= "fiercely resonant" = author looks hot in publicity photo
this goes for music reviews, but still...
"crushingly melancholic" = probably a Nine Inch Nails song
"Unforgettable"=nightmares for the next five years
Challenging - The writer cannot spell, punctuate or use correct grammar.
"Moving"- promotes good bowel function, i.e. I read it on the pot.
picaresque = guaranteed fart jokes
(Ah, the lack of an edit option on blogger comments!)
Healing (soporific)
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