The word great is hugely overused. People throw the word around like confetti to describe all manner of things unworthy of the title. For my money, only four English authors have earnt the moniker "great". And now ladies and gentlemen, it is my life's honour to proclaim that there is now a fifth. Truly, Cuger Brant now sits at the literary top table alongside Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen and McCutcheon.
There is so much that is spellbinding in Brant's epic 48 page marathon that it's a practically impossible to pick out individual highlights. Indeed, Brant is perhaps the only man with the intellectual subtelty to complete this task: truly, an irony worthy of Alanis Morisette at her most coherent. The rejection of a conventional narrative arc and a plot that makes any sort of external or internal sense is a masterstroke which leaves his readers staring forward open mouthed in awe. The deliberately poor syntax which Brant doubtless is using as a metaphor for the lack of certainty in our own lives. What a showman.
Also the cover is a pretty shade of blue.
So magnificent is this novel, that after reading it, my girlfriend swore never to read any words again so as not to sully her eyes with inferior prose. Given her employment as a newspaper sub-editor this will prove a challenge, but some things are worthy of great sacrifice. Brant's tome is one such thing.
