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A review by tiggum
The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues by Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer
1.0
An intriguing premise, but it completely fails to live up to it. The descriptions of the mythical creatures are very short and lacking in detail, so as a book about mythical creatures it falls severely short, but the discussion following each falls even shorter.
The authors banter feels forced and overly cutesy, which is not helped by the stupid gimmick of one of them pretending to be an evil monkey - LOL so random! And given that there are some fairly basic and broad rules as to what animals are kosher, most of the conclusions are obvious and uninteresting.
The choice of creatures is also often perplexing, including creatures of human-level intelligence and spirits taking the form of inanimate objects. Is a creature made of books kosher? The question is nonsense because books aren't food.
The section at the end where a chef is consulted about how to cook several of the mythical animals shows one direction this book could have taken to be a bit more interesting. More detail on fewer creatures, sticking to the ones that seem like they'd actually be edible, a discussion of what dietary restrictions might apply, and some discussion of what the creature would taste like and why, and how best to prepare it, could make for a much better book than this.
Basically, this book just seems like a really lazy take on an idea with potential. Apparently it began as a series of blog posts, and it seems like it had about as much effort put into it as the average blog post. It seems like it probably entertained the authors, and possibly their friends, but I can't see any reason for anyone else to read it.
The authors banter feels forced and overly cutesy, which is not helped by the stupid gimmick of one of them pretending to be an evil monkey - LOL so random! And given that there are some fairly basic and broad rules as to what animals are kosher, most of the conclusions are obvious and uninteresting.
The choice of creatures is also often perplexing, including creatures of human-level intelligence and spirits taking the form of inanimate objects. Is a creature made of books kosher? The question is nonsense because books aren't food.
The section at the end where a chef is consulted about how to cook several of the mythical animals shows one direction this book could have taken to be a bit more interesting. More detail on fewer creatures, sticking to the ones that seem like they'd actually be edible, a discussion of what dietary restrictions might apply, and some discussion of what the creature would taste like and why, and how best to prepare it, could make for a much better book than this.
Basically, this book just seems like a really lazy take on an idea with potential. Apparently it began as a series of blog posts, and it seems like it had about as much effort put into it as the average blog post. It seems like it probably entertained the authors, and possibly their friends, but I can't see any reason for anyone else to read it.