The Disastrous Tale of Vera and Linus
- Jun 16, 2018
- 2 min read
★★☆☆☆
Jesse Ball and Þórdís Björnsdóttir’s The Disastrous Tale of Vera and Linus made my reading list in 2010 because an old high school friend (who also happens to be a writer) wrote the following five-star review: “indeed. just about perfect. thanks to everyone who recommended it. it matters little if you are a reader or a writer, it seems that Ball is raising the bar either way.” This was the same year I gave a one-star review to David Byrne’s The New Sins stating, at the top, “There was probably a time when I would have found this book entertaining, even enjoyable.”
If you’re interested, you can find the rest of the review here, but it only seems appropriate that I would have a similar reaction to Vera and Linus. It comes across as both slight and precious. It attempts to pass its nonsensicalness off as profundity. It is wrought with a style of writing that feels forced in its archaicness. It feels like a giant (tiny pocket-sized book) joke that nobody got, except I seem to be the only one who feels this way.
It’s not that the book doesn’t have its charms. It’s short. It’s interesting in the way trying to figure out what two people conversing in a foreign language are saying is interesting. Some of the sketches are amusing, some are lovely, some are disturbing, and some are all three at once. Though largely devoid of detail (they are sketches, after all), the brief stories are highly visual. It would be a treat to see them turned into animated shorts, which isn’t the best praise for a book I was convinced to read because of a review citing its bar-raising writing. Perhaps, like The New Sins, I got to the party too late. Perhaps my expectations were wrong. Perhaps, as my friend’s review noted, I was unable to raise my bar as a reader. Or perhaps this attempt at a postmodern fairy tale needed a little more substance, a little more structure, and, also like The New Sins, maybe just a little less self-reverence.
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