Bitches of Babel

Finished Dogs of Babel, but have to say I'm disappointed. It has a good premise, and an appropriate cool tone. It's about grief and how even those emotionally cool intellectual are affected by the unfathomable questions and unsolvable mysteries of death. Fine. And this books moves, almost comically, into a Fight Club kind of scenario; one of psychological internal conflict acted out in a bizarre external world.

But then he discovers a hidden message (ugh!) his dead wife has left him in rearranged book titles. And everything works out, happily ever after. He even has a date with the girl from the humane society... What a let down after such a great premise!

Yet everything in this story is set up for tragedy. And dark and dismal failure. Instead of being a psychological exploration of emotion and denial, it becomes chick lit.

The tone of the story, even in first person from the linguist widower, is distant. We know little about our main character except that he's trying to understand and intellectualize his grief. The back story of their romance is a bit over-the-top (what does she see in him? Why does he put up with her eccentricities?). Mostly it's their three-day first date to dive a thousand miles to Disney-world. More chick lit fantasy than anything serving the story.

There are many acknowledgments at the end of the book. This looks like a thesis that's had many hands on it. Too many hands. It lacks maturity and guts and I must say has a too female touch for a male point of view. Too many cute scenes (3-day first date, ghost at Mardi Gras) and the coolness of the first person point of view ends up looking like a lack of perception of the male character by a female writer. 

Too bad. It was a great premise.

Woof!