Alphabets, but clever

[bloodygranuaile]

Because I was reading some big long books and I have to go read more big long books, I decided to knock out a short book so that I could get my Goodreads number up a bit. The shortest unread book I had on hand was Edward Gorey’s Thoughtful Alphabets: The Just Dessert and The Deadly Blotter. These are two short stories--26 words, in fact, told by one word each going through the whole alphabet. The first story, "The Just Dessert," is a little opaque about what’s actually going on, but appears to be about a bunch of people bickering a lot, and a small statue on a tall pillar that mysterious things happen to. The second story, "The Deadly Blotter," is a much more straightforward murder mystery--the “C” page just says “Corpse”--and it names a lot of the tropes and plot points of regular murder mysteries, with the possible exception of “K,” “Knitting,” although I suppose that depends on what kind of murder mysteries you read.

 

Anyway, it was short and fun and adorable, probably not Gorey’s best work but still pretty delightful and full of whimsical drawings. The basic concept of the Thoughtful Alphabet also seems like a fun party game for writery types, like Exquisite Corpse.