The Horror Begins

I have a very special book review for you. Sadly, none of you have ever heard of this particular book. Which is quite the tragedy as it is one of the most hilarious books I have ever laid hands on. Fortunately it is available from Amazon for your consumption. This book is entitled Cabin by Black Lake: The Horror Begins. Believe me, the horror begins on page one and does not stop. Unfortunately for the author of this book the horror comes not in the plot or execution of this book (both of which are in fact tired and terrible) but in the frankly impressive lack of words that are spelled correctly and sentences that are grammatically correct by anyone's standards. At the same time any attempt to read this book out loud can result in contractions of the musculus zygomaticus major, painful abdominal cramps, shortness of breath, giddiness, euphoria, and other symptoms usually associated with uncontrollable laughter. With that I will lead into the main content of this post which will largely consist of quotes from the book. Any spelling, grammatical or factual errors are intentional (on my part) to keep the fidelity of the quotations and any modicum of coherence is likely a mistake due to my one-handed typing.

Chapter one, page one, paragraph one, sentence four reads: "He was in his room on the scent floor of the dome and he had been up at five thirty studying, for his test on monday." Supposedly the main character lives at the University of Maine in Orono. I've been there, and while it does have a dome it is recreational and not residential and does not have, to my knowledge (though admittedly I can only imagine that a scent floor is some kind of indoor garden focused on smell), a scent floor of any kind. The sentences that follow that are not much more coherent: "The room had two bed one of Jimmy and one of his room mate Berry Bydean. The sum shown thought a little, seen there was only one window over looking the parking lot." I'm not sure who makes bed sculptures of people or why a college student would want one but apparently they decided to put them in their room on the scent floor. Also, from what I can tell, Jimmy is doing math homework without a lot of thought even though there is not much of a view to distract him. Then, in the same paragraph, we segue extremely awkwardly into: "Because of college, he didn't have the time to date much and don't really have a close have a girl friend. Jimmy was a good looking young man and was well liked by the girl on college. Jimmy set in the chair and looked out the window on the second floor in room 214." I don't know exactly why the author would lead you to believe that UMaine Orono has a single female student when the reality is that there are (according to Wikipedia at the time I checked this fact) 6,254 female students to 5,613 male students. Or maybe the author was referring to a particular theoretical girl who likes to spend her time on the tops of the college buildings?

And now we'll go to paragraph two of the first page as I begin to wonder if I am going to need to make this particular post in installments. "Jimmy was asked by the coach to play football, as he was a very good haft-back for Old Town a couple years ago. But Jimmy said "No!" he couldn't take the time off his studies, as he was attended college, to become a lawyer It had been a quit Saturday morning, as a lot of student had go home for weeks end. Jimmy was in his dome room, and it was almost eleven o'clock in the morning. And most of the student were gone home for the week end, except for a few student that home for the week end." I'm not sure exactly what to make of this except that it seems to imply Jimmy is studying law and was once the shaft of a tool (and a very good one at that) and also, on an unrelated note, most of the students had gone home except for the few that were already there.

Moving right along, finally on page two we have a line that had me in tears: "Jimmy had a dream and was studding hard at school to make it happen." ...It sounds sort of painful and also illegal. Because studs are, you know, male animals kept for breeding. So one can only imagine what it is that Jimmy is doing to keep himself in college. He is supposedly attractive and popular with at least one girl, after all. And later in this (is this really the same paragraph, oh god, I guess it is) same paragraph: "Jill was a pretty blond twenty year old with a cute twenty four that stood five foot nine inches he weight a good hundred ninety pounds with a round belly." Yes, allow us to abruptly introduce a couple of new characters and describe them to a greater extent than the main character is ever described and also Jill apparently has what I guess must be some kind of giant dog. I will be interested to learn how the giant dog plays into this story.

Finally, finally, a third paragraph and a new page (yes, your math should work out to the fact that a third of page one and ninety percent of page two is all the same rambling paragraph). "He picked the letter up and looked at it ones more. It was from the Court in Washington County and a lawyer, Jimmy didn't know. The letter read like these.
Dear; Jimmy Bentley.
I'm sorry to inform you of the death of Orland Forster Gray. Mr. Gray died on problems of his heart on August twenty third. You, Jimmy Bentley, have been named in Orland Gray Will. You, Jimmy Bentley are ask to attend the reading of Orland Gray Will on the date of the reading of the Will. Mr. Jimmy Bentley must attend the reading of Orland F. Gray Will or you, Jimmy will lose you're part of the inheritance.
Jimmy had not been told of his uncle Orland death back in August of late year."
Wait. Wait... So, it turns out that this mysterious lawyer is really the third-person omniscient narrator of this story. Otherwise how else would the lawyer know to be sorry to inform him of the death of his uncle (and the manner in which he died) if the reader doesn't even know about Jimmy's lack of awareness until the next paragraph. I also suspect that this lawyer may have killed Mr. Gray because his explanation of problems on his heart as a cause of death sounds both fishy and defensive.

Jimmy then proceeds to take a mind-numbingly-boring walk which is described in far too much detail the only real highlight of which is when he stops to talk to some pretty girls. "Another girl walk up by side Linda, it was Rachel, a beautiful black girl with a grant finger and a pretty face with slim lips for a black girl. She was so good looking she could be a model almost any were in the country. Jimmy was greatly attacked to her, but he had no told her that he thought she so beautiful. Maybe so day he would tell her he had feeling of her, "Hi, Rachel, you're looking grant." Jimmy said as he looked her all over she smiled back, seen Jimmy was looking her over, she moved closer to him, she liked the idea that he was looking her over, she like at." I feel sort of racist and extremely sexist just re-typing that and I didn't write it. By the way, Jimmy is so attractive he can get girls that look like models even though he's poor and I'm also getting the feeling that all the female characters in this book are not only going to be mysteriously and inexplicably attracted to Jimmy but also act like (fill in your own colorful description for that behavior) the whole time.

Eventually, after a whole six and a half pages, chapter one does end though not without cramming in the introduction of even more characters, some more racism, another letter from the lawyer/narrator, replacing every word that begins with "q" with the word "quit", and a whole lot of champs (which, from the context, seems to be the grounds of the college though I feel like the illegality of making the grounds out of champs is too high for this to be factual). And now, lest my brain try to escape through my ears, (and to save something for you to enjoy if you decide to buy this) we'll skip to the big finish.

Chapter twenty-five (honest to god there are twenty-five chapters in this one hundred seventy-nine page book), page one hundred seventy-five, paragraph one, sentence one: "The next day the evening papers banner story report read , Five college STUDENTS KILLED by wild animals in the Black Lake areas and two are missing presumed die." And the only thing I can manage to think is: Christ, did he really take six other people to visit this cabin with him? Also, I am fairly certain that as there are two of them still missing they ought to be presumed dice. "His son was die!!! God no! It had been a long day at the store, Howard went through the mooching of his job at the store. But he felt as though something was missing. His son Jimmy was lost at Black Lake and God five of his friends had been murder by some animal. Howard didn't wont to think about it, but he couldn't help it, he did!" I wonder if the mooching of your job is easy? I kind of want to try it but I think I'm probably too nice for that. And yes, if your son is lost something is in fact missing- him. Fairly certain that unless these animal are sentient (and you, Howard Bentley, don't know that they are or could be unless you were tipped off by the lawyer/narrator in which case I hope you socked him) it's just killing, not murder.

And we end with this confusing and hyper-dramatic sequence: "Howard looked down at the colored phone on top of the table, as it rang one more time his hand when his fingers when around the phone and lifted the receiver picking it up and put it to his right ear and said, "Hello! "He heard hissing of the phone, then he hear the voice say at the other end of the telephone
"Dad, I'm alive!""
I can only wonder if this sentence contains the maximum saturation of "ways that you can describe picking up a phone" in one sentence provided that grammar is not a factor (sorry Geoffrey Chaucer). I also find myself strangely disappointed that Jimmy wasn't killed by the Jelly Creatures (which are, in fact, the actual monsters in this story) after all. And now, aside from urging you to buy this book for a hilarious if sometimes painful read that you will want to share with your friends, I think I'll conclude this post the same way that the book that it revolves around comes to a close.

THE END