The Decadent Book, or the Book of the Decade? [The Ambiguities]
These sidebar snapshots can be rather cryptic, given the space restraints and the author’s stylistic preferences: a typical line from World War II reads “6 German saboteurs go” (go being a multivalent word in the book, but very often meaning die). Many are even less descriptive: a simple number, the meaning of which is only revealed (or not) after later repetitions. (I hate to do this to someone as cool as Danielewski obviously is, but the device is reminiscent of nothing so much as the wildly popular but, in retrospect, horribly embarrassing Billy Joel boomer anthem “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”)
Willie’s review of another maddening Danielewski book.
