July 5, 2016

Defying categorization

The following book was kindly sent to me by the self-published author, Erik Von Norden, who requested a review. Thanks for your patience! :-)

The book in question is titled Theory of Irony: How Jesus Led to Moon Golf and I struggle to categorize it. It's historical, philosophical, satirical, and many things in between. At its heart this is a factual account of all things ironic throughout history. The book covers everything from the great philosophers and theologians of the past to Jesus himself (hence the title). I vacillated between really loving this book to being extremely confused by it. The confusion lies in the huge leaps that this book makes between factual accounts to the author's sidetracked thoughts. There were times it almost felt memoir-ish. I think I would have preferred this to be more streamlined and to the point. However, I wouldn't say no to a memoir by this author because I like his narrative voice very much. If you're a fan of history and you like a snarky writing style then I think you'd really like this one. It's an interesting look at how society has seemingly said one thing and done the exact opposite over and over again. Humans are strange creatures indeed. Overall, I found this book to be thought-provoking and I'd give it a solid 6/10.

**If you're interested in buying this book or any books really, you can click here or here. The first will re-direct you to AbeBooks and the second will re-direct you to The Book Depository. These are great websites for purchasing books (AbeBooks carries inexpensive used and out-of-print books and The Book Depository ships free everywhere in the world). Full disclosure: I will receive a commission on all sales made by following either of these links. I wouldn't recommend a site that I didn't use and you are under no obligation to purchase anything. :-) **

No comments:

Post a Comment