Who doesn’t like salty chocolate chip cookies or rather who does? The merit of this book lies in an obscure realm from where the literature can both extol or debase it, for instance for its one or three line chapters. Was it witty that the author tried to wrap it as if someone else was explaining it to him in the book or just plain foolish? So, after philosophy and love are lost for the reader, what’s left is just wit, like delicious chips in a salty chocolate chip cookie. The dabble attempts to describe a school of thought that the author himself didn’t understand. And like every unsuccessful love story, this one tries to venture into philosophy to express its regret - both with love and with life. The narration can be filled with any other story, perhaps that of a person running a marathon encountering wit at every mile - no one would know the difference. The more you think about it, the more you realize that it’s just a narration auxiliary to the wit. The book is a love story - an extramarital affair for nobody. Kudos to the author for trying to build a three legged stool made of wit, love and philosophy, except that other than wit, the other two legs didn’t find their footing. If it were not for the wit, the book would be in its grave (like the narrator!) rather than still standing on one leg - yes just one leg, barely able to hold its own weight. What’s better than something interesting and obscure - interesting for the sake of reading it and obscure to later boast about it, to portray oneself as a connoisseur? Is that what the The New Yorker review was doing? There is no doubt that this book is witty.
I would not know about this book if it had not been featured in a recent The New Yorker article titled ‘Rediscovering one of the wittiest book ever written.’ A title like this is a perfect teaser for any reader.
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