Fiction, 6/10 – February 2007
If you can get past how ugly the site is, www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com is pretty funny. So funny in fact that I randomly decided to buy this book by the author.
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‘… You, for example, are stupid and self-pitying, but what civilised observer would censure me for mentioning that you have a big nose too?’ ‘I don’t have a big nose.’ ‘See? That’s my point. The efficacy of an arbitrary personal attack is that it clears a path for the important issues. You have allowed “stupid” and “self-pitying” through unopposed, because they were riding on top of your big nose.’ |
Love And Other Near Death Experiences is about a guy trying to sort his head out because he’s confused after having a close-encounter with death which he avoided because of a random decision that didn’t seem important at the time. Now he puts more thought into seemingly random decisions in case the wrong choice leads him back to a tragic situation – in fact, he just can’t make some simple decisions any more (e.g. it sometimes takes him 3 hours to decide which leg to use to get out of the shower in case the wrong choice will cause him to slip and fall). Nearly all the characters in the book have mild to strong (and morbidly entertaining) mental problems.
It’s not really a chick-flick, in fact it is sort of an anti-love story in a way. I found it funny on the whole (sarcastic humour) with a few pages that went a bit over the top. My favourite characters were the witty but suicidal Elizabeth and the grumpy and insulting boss, Keith.
