There’s no ambiguity about the inspiration for Tyler Knox’s “Kockroach: A Novel”, as the book’s opening line should tell you:

As Kockroach, an arthropod of the genus Blatella and of the species germanica, awakens one morning from a typically dreamless sleep, he finds himself transformed into some large, vile creature.

And if it doesn’t tell you, then I’ll let one Franz Kafka enlighten you, “Metamorphosis”-style:

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

I’m a sucker for such literary remixing, as my earlier reading of Joe McGinniss Jr.’s “The Delivery Man” as latter-day “Less Than Zero” attests. If nothing else, it shows off an author’s reverence for the writerly giants.

Notice the level of reversal that Knox imbues in his prose. Not only does he accomplish the bug-to-man change (that “large, vile creature” being a human), but he picks up on Kafka’s granting of “anxious dreams” to Gregor Samsa to, in turn, establish that Kockroach, being a cockroach, would be bereft of any dreaming at all prior to all this. Dealing with more active mental faculties becomes a key driver in Knox’s telling.

I only wish “Kockroach” had held up beyond its opening couple of chapters. A nice enough attempt at hardboiled comic noir, but ultimately a bit of a mess, with most of the characters (including, regrettably, the lead female, who also serves as one of the three narrators) being too underdeveloped to keep the story going. A transformation — in the form of another editorial proofing or two — could have done wonders.

To make it crystal-clear that Joe McGinniss Jr. is channeling Bret Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero” in his debut effort “The Delivery Man”, he starts off the novel with these three words:

Find Yourself Here

A literary echo of the signifier from “Zero”: Disappear Here. It sets the stage nicely for parallels between the moral nihilism of 1980s LA youth culture and the spiritual hollowness to be found among denizens of present-day Las Vegas.

I think “Delivery” did a pretty good job of convey that, although ultimately it doesn’t paint as dire a picture as Ellis’ decadent landscape. The flashback-delivered backstory concerning the protagonist’s sister was all-too-obvious in informing the main characters’ motivations, and thus is probably the weakest part of the book. Otherwise though, I think it was a very good effort, and I enjoyed the read.

McGinniss’ hat-tip to Ellis isn’t surprising, since the two writers share an extensive common history, including mentorships and entrees into book publishing. So it’s only right that elements of his novel’s structure pay homage to Ellis’ iconic fiction.

Next step for McGinniss, of course: Getting his motto worked into a Brit-pop song. Only then will he have arrived.

Why pay for some hack’s multi-city junket when surfing the blogosphere is cheaper and more effective?

“If I had to choose, I’d rather have an author promote themselves online,” said Felicia Sullivan, the senior online marketing manager of Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins, who maintains that the Internet exposes authors to a broader audience than most bookstore readings.

“You can reach at least a few hundred people on a blog, and save time, money and the fear of being a loser when no one shows up to your reading.”

But what if no one leaves comments on your guest posts? That loser-fear is no harder to shake online than off.

I’m on an oddball-lit kick of late. No sooner did I finish reading a collection of stories told by severed heads, than I picked up “Mr. Thundermug: A Novel”.

What’s so odd about this book, by first-time author Cornelius Medvei? The cover image here should give it away, but in case it’s not clear: The title character is a baboon, who moves his family into an abandoned house in some British neighborhood, then somehow learns how to speak perfectly-dictioned English.

I’d say that’s plenty to drive a comic novel.

I’m already halfway through it, and it’s a slim volume. It’s proving to be a breezy, absurdist read. Probably just what the doctor ordered for me, of late.

I don’t suppose book publishing gets much more gimmicky than it does with Robert Olen Butler’s “Severance”.

The book is a collection of short stories. And I mean short — for a macabre reason:

Butler conceived of the idea after encountering a gruesome piece of trivia: that a human head is believed to continue in a state of consciousness for one and a half minutes after decapitation. Having then determined, from another source, that “in a heightened state of emotion, we speak at the rate of 160 words per minute,” Butler arrived at a new — and unlikely to be replicated — art form, the vignette of the severed head, told in exactly 240 words.

Not that Butler limited himself to human heads. Among his subjects are a dinnertable-destined chicken, a dragon, Medusa, and the Lady of the Lake. Not sure they’re entitled to the same wordcount as us regular folk, but I’ll let it slide.

Unfortunately, it looks like he got some bum information on the first part of that creepy equation:

After decapitation, consciousness remains in the severed head not for a minute and a half, as your reviewer explains Butler’s premise, but for about 30 seconds. In 1905, a French physician timed how long the eyes responded when he called the decapitated man’s name…

To appreciate the full pathos of Butler’s subjects, readers may want to pause at the end of the first 80 words, when the thinking has to stop. Beyond that lies only the author’s hope.

Maybe that’s what I should have done when I tore through the book over the last couple of days; I could have completed it in one sitting instead. The book’s physical size wouldn’t have changed — as it is, each story is self-contained within a single page (plus a preceding section cover page).

I don’t mean to imply that “Severance” wasn’t entertaining. I thought the stories for the Biblical figures (the apostles Paul and Matthew, and John the Baptist) were excellent, as was the one for the Lady in the Lake. And the inclusion of Nicole Brown Simpson was sly, as was Butler putting himself on the chopping block (fictionally) for the finale. But I agree with the Times review: The stream-of-consciousness motif resulted in an overbearing sameness, especially toward the end. It didn’t help that the author overreached on a few, trying to shoehorn the narrative of what led to the character’s death into what should be final, frenzied contemplation.

For those interested, this all has a Sunshine State connection. Butler lives in Capps, Florida (which I’ve never heard of), and is a professor at Florida State University (which I have heard of). Figures that something this kooky would come out of the F-L-A.

Late last week, I had the pleasure of dining with my friend Tom, who made a one day/one night trip into New York on business. We had a decent Italian meal at Biricchino, which was a few steps down the street from his hotel.

While shooting the breeze over steak and lobster ravioli, Tom shared with me his new made-up word: “Manniving”. It’s a mash-up of “conniving” and “manipulative”, more or less. He found it a necessary linguistic invention to describe the evolving behavior of his precocious toddler of a daughter, who’s learning how to work her daddy for special favors like extra pieces of candy. Manniving joins “dramastic” — “dramatic” and “drastic” — as Tom’s unique contributions to the lexicon. Dramastic was born back during our college days; Tom’s been riding that word-coining as a mark of distinction among our social circle ever since. (And here I thought I was the group’s wordsmith…)

As it happens, Tom dropped his new word-stylin’ at the same time that I received a review copy of “Mixtionary”, a little humor book that contains about a hundred such hybrid words, accompanied by illustrations. And so the timing of my dinner with Tom was indeed fortuitous for me, because it underscored what I found to be both enjoyable about “Mixtionary” — and what was disappointing.

The book, released through IDW Publishing, is an attractively-bound mini-hardcover edition, ideally packaged and priced (at $9.99) for the giftbook market. It’s intended to be a breezy read, and Shawn McManus’ cartoon illustrations, accompanying every word definition, certainly help move you through the pages.

As for the invented words on those pages… The premise of this collection, as related by the authors, is that it’s the result of organic slang development, forged through emails and IMs to describe various modern-day situations for which old verbiage can’t do justice.

That’s a neat premise, but I don’t really buy it. Certainly, some of the catchier mix-words “feel” natural; but most of them feel wholly concocted to serve as filler material. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe 10-20 percent of the book’s content was born from genuinely spontaneous conversation; the rest was more likely cooked up just to get the book up to 100 pages. And of that rest, half is mildly amusing and potentially catchy, while the other half is just plain forced and unlikely to ever be used in common parlance.

Which words sing? I found “foodswings”, the inevitable mood swings suffered by people with blood sugar problems, to genuine. Others I found convincing were “mantiques” (vintage pop-cultural artifacts that grown men hang onto), “escape goat” (the fallguy/girl for a failed corporate concept), and “noclueitall” (someone who thinks s/he’s an expert despite obvious ignorance).

Which words seem contrived? “Dumposure”, describing one’s reaction to the end of a long-term relationship, doesn’t ring true. The brief Superlatives section — consisting of “elevenacious”, “excrucianine”, and “asiten” — especially smacks of cheap padding (especially since it’s not new; who hasn’t heard of a forehead so big that it’s a “fivehead”, for instance?). And the six — yes, six — variants on shoe-appreciation terms hint that one of the authors needs to cut back on the “Sex and the City” reruns.

I also found a couple of the words to be fine in concept, but awkwardly formed. Instead of “wronglomerate” for a corporate merger between two mismatched companies, why not “contraglomerate”? Same with “wronguist”, for someone with a penchant for mangling vocabulary — when “malinguist” works better.

All told, “Mixtionary” is a nice little piece of printed fluff, with definite creative potential behind it. But I don’t think there’s too much naturally trend-flowing about it, and comes across as trying too hard to be uber-hip. If I may be allowed a quick-and-dirty mashup of my own…

You do a couple of book reviews, and you get season’s greetings in return. Kelly Leonard and the gang at Time Warner Book Group sent me a nice holiday card based on artwork from Todd Parr’s “The Peace Book”. From the looks of it, it would make a cute book for young and old.

This card marks the very first piece of postal mail I’ve received addressed to “Population Statistic” (even the review books I got earlier this year didn’t include the blog’s title on the address label). Handwritten, no less. It gives me a funny feeling to see it in an offline context; it makes it more “real”, in a sense.

Take note: By singling out this holiday card, I’m not dissing all the other cards and letters I’ve received and will receive from friends and family. They all rule.

One down, one to go. Courtesy of Time Warner Book Group, the following is my brief review of David Harris’ “The Crisis : The President, the Prophet, and the Shah — 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam”.

By way of background, not only did I run a teaser for this review yesterday, but last month, I also made note of an interesting tidbit about Ayatollah Khomeini’s name.

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The present-day War on Terror inspires an impulse to examine the roots of Islamic animosity toward Washington and its Mideast policy. The natural starting point: The 1979-80 Iranian Hostage Crisis, a flashpoint event that crystalized public attitudes on both sides ever since.

But how useful is the Crisis as a case study to be applied to today’s dynamic? The parallels seem obvious, taking into consideration the broad outlines. But is what happened during those 444 days a quarter-century ago as apparent as it seemed to the public eye?

Harris’ “The Crisis” examines the extensive behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the hostage-taking, the negotiations to free the captives, and the drawn-out resolution. Every step of the way, the accounts and recollections provided by the likes of Hamilton Jordan, Abolhassan Bani Sadr and Robert Armao speak to just how complex the process was, and how much depended upon managing the situation instead of making futile attempts at guiding it.

Harris devotes a tremendous amount of background to how the political culture in Iran led to the Islamic Revolution. The hostage situation doesn’t occur until halfway through the book, underlining the importance of what led up to the Crisis.

Much of that prelude centered around the Shah of Iran, reviled in his country for running a repressive regime commonly assumed to be an American-backed client. The U.S. backing of the Shah, right up to the end, ensured an anti-American character to the Revolution; but the antecedents to the uprising illustrated ample opportunities for Washington to potentially forge ties with the post-Shah government (though not without collateral diplomatic damage). The Iranian fixation on the Shah wound up precipitating the hostage-taking, and his eventual fate, after a lengthy stint as an nomadic exile, accelerated an end to it.

Harris attempts to portray the Shah as an all-to0-human character, done in by his own shortcomings. At times, it’s overdone: The author continually strives for irony by referring to the Shah by his many honorifics (”King of Kings”, “Light of the Aryans”, and others) simultaneously, but despite the story of his continuing physical and political deterioration, the effect makes the Shah more of a mystical figure.

The Shah is only one of the three central characters in this book, the others being Jimmy Carter and Ayatollah Khomeini. Character studies on each mainly concentrated on their upbringings and rise to power, and were supposed to serve as context for their later behavior. While comprehensive, I’m not sure just how useful it was in interpreting the chief developments in the Crisis. In particular, the Ayatollah, potentially the most intriguing of the three, is the sketchiest study (doubtless due to the greater difficulty in getting an accurate account of his later years).

Somewhat surprisingly, very little focus is put upon the individual hostages themselves, or to their captors. A decent overview of the raid on the American Embassy in Tehran is provided, as well as how conditions were for a few specific hostages and specific hostage-takers. But in this book’s scope, they’re almost relegated to one of many sidebar stories, with the macro-political stories taking precedence. Personally, I preferred this approach, as I feel it got to the heart of the matter; but those expecting this book to deal more directly with the hostages could be disappointed.

What struck me most about Harris’ presentation of the facts was how The Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam (the group responsible for the hostage standoff) managed to paralyze not one, but two governments. While the flummoxing of Washington was apparent to the world, the way the Students manipulated Iran’s Revolutionary government was more subtle. And yet it was this defiance of Tehran’s secular authorities that prevented an otherwise-attainable timely solution, and more than anything set the tone for the poisoned relations between the U.S. and Iran even today.

As an historical anatomy lesson, “The Crisis” is a very comprehensive work. Harris covered all the bases, from all sides, and paid due attention to how governments function in the face of seemingly unmanagable circumstances.

Where the book falls short is in the alleged attempt to link the Hostage Crisis to the beginnings of today’s militant Islam. It’s a weak attempt that’s given barely a couple of paragraphs’ worth of mention. I have a feeling that it was injected into the title simply to make the book seem less musty and more relevant to today’s events. In reality, the book stands well on its own as a history book, and Harris shouldn’t have to apologize for that.

“The Crisis” is a great recounting of a critical juncture in American history. The presentation has many aspects of a real-life political thriller, making it an engrossing read.

I’ve been a lazy slug. I had intended to finally post a review of “The Crisis : The President, the Prophet, and the Shah — 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam”, by David Harris today. It’s been well over a month since Time Warner Book Group sent it to me for my review, and a couple of weeks since I finished it. But I simply haven’t geared myself up to write it.

So, by way of committing myself to it, I’m posting this teaser here. I will definitely post a review tomorrow, come hell or high water. Mark it down.

I’m slowly reading through “The Crisis : The President, the Prophet, and the Shah — 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam”, by David Harris. It’s the second book Time Warner Book Group sent me for my review. I’d hoped to be nearly finished with it by now, but I doubt I’ll be done with it, and have a review posted here, until after Thanksgiving. That’s life.

It’s not a reflection on the book, necessarily. I’m working my way into it, and appreciating the detail that’s going into setting the stage for what would be a world-riveting crisis. Part of that detail is coming from the backgrounds of the primary players in the event: The Shah, Jimmy Carter, and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

I found this tidbit about Khomeini to be particularly interesting:

Ruhollah was a most uncommon name in Khomein [the Iranian town where the future Ayatollah was born]. It literally means “the spirit of Allah”, and some Muslims considered its use sacrilegious, since it was also used as another name for Jesus Christ, whom Muslims accepted as a prophet, though not as the son of God.

I doubt many Americans back then, let alone now, were aware that Khomeini’s first name translated to “Jesus”. And there’s an odd fatefulness to a boy with a somewhat scandalous name becoming a holy man. Strange stuff in the West-versus-Islam context.

I’ve finished reading “OPUS: 25 Years of His Sunday Best”, and as promised when I received this review copy, I’m posting my impression of it.

So welcome to the first-ever Population Statistic Book Review. Thanks again to Time Warner Book Group for making it possible.

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Let’s start with what “OPUS” is not:

It’s not a quintessential slice of Breathed’s representative “Bloom County” work. The meat of that lay in the daily strips, where the edgier satire and complete story arcs were showcased more fully. It also resided in the other characters, like Steve Dallas, Milo and Binkley (who, more than anything, served as Breathed’s persona). They were the drivers of what “Bloom” came to represent: A mirror of the ’80s as a decade of transition.

For Breathed, Sundays were generally the days off from the rest of the week’s intense social examination. While the Opus character certainly dealt with weighty issues (especially after he became the focus in “Outland” and his current, eponymous strip), his role was more to serve as a release from the hard stuff. He was the reliable optimist in Bloom County, counted on to inject his simple and sunny disposition — and even rationality — into an otherwise gloomy and wickedly cruel world. And indeed, this collection of Sunday strips celebrates that.

Not that Opus’ optimism always triumphed. Even he would sometimes succumb to the absurd hopelessness found in runaway consumerism and political chicanery (along with some now-departed societal artifacts like restaurant no-smoking sections). But you got the feeling that, despite his look of quiet despair and resignation by the final panel, the penguin would beat a trail to his cherished dandelion patch, recharge his enthusiasm and once again face the world with bright eyes and a smile (and occasional indignity).

The strips here range from the very beginning of Bloom County’s run in 1981 through to the first several editions of the current strip. It’s not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be. Breathed selected these particular strips as his favorites featuring the penguin; it’s very much an Opus scrapbook. The cartoonist provides brief commentary for all three of Opus’ strips, none too enlightening but a good add-in nonetheless.

Despite the coverage of two decades, you don’t see much in the way of an evolution of Opus’ character, outside the early change in physical look. If anything, you get a hint of the evolution of Breathed’s cartooning style instead, from dealing with fairly fluffy material to more substantial fare throughout the ’80s and into the ’90s and the present day.

It’s been noted that Breathed’s satire portended the present pop-cultural landscape, and these Opus strips give a taste of that as well. The lampooning of the public obsession with “America’s Funniest Home Videos” 15 years ago brings to mind today’s fervor for reality television. Even further proof of how much things stay the same: A strip from the early ’90s targets Halliburton, which even then was making a name for itself in corporate malfeasance.

I found the run of “Outland” strips to be very illustrative of Breathed’s creative approach. “Outland” was Breathed’s first attempt at a Sunday-only strip, an attempt to focus his energy and avoid the burnout that comes from producing a daily strip. Yet despite the more favorable schedule and format — and intention of leaving behind the “Bloom County” trappings that had grown stale — you can see here how disenchanted Breathed became once again. The winding-down of the strip was marked by the re-introduction of practically the entire Bloom County cast, basically a re-hashing; and in the very last “Outland” strip, it’s revealed that, in fact, Outland and Bloom County were essentially the same place.

There are plenty of other examples in this book of how often Breathed dips into the same bag of tricks for story subjects. The “dial-a-mom” service that Opus calls, with basically the same punchline, is shown to be recycled several years apart. I’m a bit surprised that this, and other examples, would be included in the same collection.

There is a special bonus in these pages: A brief spread on “Walter & Jasmine”, a never-existed strip that was commissioned from Breathed for use in the movie Secondhand Lions. Unexpectedly, this faux strip served as inspiration for Breathed’s current comic strip work.

The book itself is a beauty, with high-quality slick paper that does justice to these full-color strips. The hardcover jacket design is also visually pleasing. Minor quibbles: I’d have liked page numbering, as well as the original run dates for each strip (the latter would have been especially handy for putting some of the humor in context).

I’ll also repeat my original critique regarding the “25 years” claim for this collection. As pointed out earlier, “Bloom County” first ran in 1981, with Opus making his debut in the strip’s second week. Since that makes it only 23 years, I anticipated some sort of earlier Breathed efforts that would have featured the penguin (or, at least, a likely ancestor). Alas, that wasn’t the case in this collection, and there’s no explanation for the discrepency. It’s pretty obvious — the 1981 start date is mentioned in the book — so I have to assume that this collection is simply being put out early to cash in early. (Is it possible that Breathed’s already decided that the current “Opus” strip won’t last until the real 25th anniversary? Just putting it out there.)

“OPUS” is obviously a must-have for Breathed completists. It’s also a nice addition for casual fans of both Breathed and Opus. It’s an exemplary look at one of the better practitioners of comic strip storytelling and comic art, often at his best. Even in excerpted form, the story of Opus thus far is a fun ride.