My Review of the Book 'Eeeee Eee Eeee' by Tao Lin

I looked at a sample of the book Eeeee Eee Eeee, by Tao Lin, online, and bought the Kindle version. I have read several pages (laughing a few times) and here is my initial review:

There is a theory called the Infinite Monkey Theory that states that if you let a monkey bang away randomly on a typewriter for an infinite period of time he will eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare. From this theory I have derived the Quarter Monkey Theory that states that a monkey using only one hand instead of two and using only half of infinity instead of all of it, could write the book Eeeee Eee Eeee.

[For those weak in mathematics, one half times one half equals one quarter.] Do keep in mind I mean this as a compliment to the author.

After I read the complete book I will make a recommendation.

Warning: The book contains some naughty words.

Update: This has nothing to do with the book. I semi-randomly read an article on the Korean alphabet named Hangul, and now I think it a very wonderful way of writing. The shape of the letters has to do with the shape of the mouth while speaking, and syllables are a collection of sounds that are wrote as separate groups. Of course I say that only knowing about the language, not actually using it or learning it. But its adoption by the Korean people for a written language instead of using Chinese characters made it easier to have a higher literacy rate, especially among the poor people. I will give you a separate review of my attempts at learning Korean. But I can tell you this much: I studied it an hour or so ago and I still remember how to write 'ganada' in Korean. That is the equivalent of English for ABC, the first three letters of the alphabet.

The Hangul arrangement is called the ganada order, (가나다 순) which is basically an alphabetical order named after the first three letters (g, n, d) affixed to the first vowel (a). The letters were named by Choe Sejin in 1527.

Link to the Korean Alphabet

Update: Friday morning pre-chicken sandwich - I have made it eXactly halfway through the book Eeeee Eee Eeee. What shall I compare it to? In some ways it is like every snowman I have ever built-made-gave life to that is now just a puddle somewhere or a drop in the ocean, and a perceptive child walks by and looks at his reflection in the puddle, and forces his mother to stop as he points, and she says, "What is it?" and the child smiles and says, "It's a snowman!". Or it could be like a shark that was swimming through a drop of the ex-snowman and he suddenly thinks, "That bit of ocean was a little colder and less salty than normal".

I got to the very middle of the book and imagined being on a Bell Curve, eXactly halfway, like you were done climbing up the side of the curve ready for an easy ride down, but then you notice that the curve has suddenly inverted and you NOW have to make the same climb back out of a Bell Curve shaped hole. Ugh.

On my way through the book I get the idea to make a list of all the naughty words, and then make a frequency diagram, maybe color coding each naughty word. I am not sure just yet what kind of graph it will be.

The writing is eXcruciatingly random to the point of slowly nearly inducing pain, but then just as you think a tiny piece of pain is going to happen within you, suddenly you laugh, and say out loud, I can't believe people pay money for this. Or else you fall asleep and think you read something, but it was reaLLy just a dream.

I am off to feed the dog and then myself in that order.

Update: Monday morning with headache - I decided to read the second half of the book backwards, sentence by sentence. I figured it would probably make just as much sense to do it that way as to go forward. So here is my review of the entire book: I believe that most anyone could write a book very similar to Eeeee Eee Eeee by following these steps.

 A) Find someone who would agree to take LSD and be interviewed
 B) Prompt the someone with questions about bears, dolphins, girlfriends, hampsters, Obama, pizza and space aliens
 C) Follow the someone around recording everything they say and do
 D) Ask the someone questions if they stop speaking
 E) Stop when you have 211 pages of material

Would I recommend reading this book? No, but I am going to scan it again so I can create an accurate chart of naughty words. I certainly would not recommend that anyone read this book while taking LSD or while confined to a psychiatric ward.

Note: I have no personal eXperience with illegal drugs. I have just seen the effects on others and heard a lot of stories. And I'm a chemist.