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A review by tom_in_london
The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
5.0
This is fun: it's the story of Bob Comet, who is very innocent. His hard-drinking uncaring mother has left him alone in the world and unprepared for it. At first he gets a job in a nursing home, where some of the characters are hilarious; then as a librarian, he meets up with his girlfriend Connie; at a certain point in his discovery of everything for the first time, he "falls in love", only to discover an unpleasant feeling (which he doesn't know is jealousy) that is actually quite funny to read about.
This part of the story ends up in a dull suburban situation that has nowhere else to go, so deWitt changes tack and invents an earlier and more interesting phase of Bob's life, and that's where it all becomes wildly imaginative and even funnier.
Bob runs away from home by train and bus, attaching himself to a travelling troupe of two rather forbidding women who take up residence in a tumbledown hotel facing the Pacific Ocean. They give him a role, pay him a dollar a day, and teach him to do a 20-minute snare drum roll, which he has to practice outside by the ocean because of the noise. Two gangs of lumberjacks begin feuding in the nearby towns; World War II comes to an end; the local Sheriff volunteers to drive Bob home; and so on.
It's all very humorous, not only because of the crazy narrative but even more because of deWitt's excellent way with the English language, which make the reading a constantly fresh delight. The writing carries the narrative along and although there is a story, it kind of doesn't matter and is pretty ridiculous anyway.
What got me interested in deWitt was Nicole Flattery - see her review in the London Review of Books. https://tinyurl.com/343gpkdm
This part of the story ends up in a dull suburban situation that has nowhere else to go, so deWitt changes tack and invents an earlier and more interesting phase of Bob's life, and that's where it all becomes wildly imaginative and even funnier.
Bob runs away from home by train and bus, attaching himself to a travelling troupe of two rather forbidding women who take up residence in a tumbledown hotel facing the Pacific Ocean. They give him a role, pay him a dollar a day, and teach him to do a 20-minute snare drum roll, which he has to practice outside by the ocean because of the noise. Two gangs of lumberjacks begin feuding in the nearby towns; World War II comes to an end; the local Sheriff volunteers to drive Bob home; and so on.
It's all very humorous, not only because of the crazy narrative but even more because of deWitt's excellent way with the English language, which make the reading a constantly fresh delight. The writing carries the narrative along and although there is a story, it kind of doesn't matter and is pretty ridiculous anyway.
What got me interested in deWitt was Nicole Flattery - see her review in the London Review of Books. https://tinyurl.com/343gpkdm