A review by tbrnichols
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen

mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

pages enjoyed 1-~110, 182-~240, ~520-Fin.

There's an idea here and maybe that idea is slightly compelling but it's a bit of a slog to get to and it's wrapped in a plot that's boring and tragic and banal but I'm not really sure in the interesting slice of life kind of banality but more like the insufferable white dude aping other insufferable white dudes kind of banal. This book could have been a short story as like this review could have been comprehensible.

But was the interesting banality the author in the first place? Is the internet and it's fascination with the surrounding circumstances the the parasociality beyond the screen any more compellingly parasocial than that of the novelist? Though not of Cohen or RAJC, as my nomenclature dictates (distinct from FAJC) since the self insert is not in fact the self. 

Some parts of this book were really compelling, with FAJC's observational flourish and creative diarism, verbal dia- well no that seems low hanging. Unfortunately far more seemed a nearly personal vendetta to show how shitty an author must be, personally, again verging into the uninsightfully banal. And then the interview section, the making of the sausage rather interesting, but the sausage abandoned in favor of the raw, uncooked, unfinished, uncurated, in fact natural and perhaps organic feedstock. Which I did not find particularly nourishing slurping it from the auditory trough. 

But and so I must admit that RAJC ties it all together quite nicely, though still I think the misanthropism towards his fellows Joshs Cohens as like considering himself roko's namesake inverted, a rather Catholic notion for a Jew, entirely unnecessary, though perhaps all print condemns to samsara until recycling, and so may the cloud holding this review return to rain and the bucket holding the reflection of the moon fall and may it's water leach into the ground, my anguish and triumph in the book of numbers lost as like C beam glitters near the Tannhaüser gate. 
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