clare_dragonfly @ : Book Review: archy books
archy and mehitabel and archyology by Don Marquis
I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate these books. They're certainly not my usual fare. In fact, I only read them because my high school boyfriend gave me the second one--I just recently managed to find the first.
They are poems, or stories or articles constructed like poems, ostensibly written by a cockroach named Archy. Archy writes by flinging himself headfirst onto typewriter keys, so there are no capital letters, though I'm at a loss to explain the lack of punctuation (surely he could at least manage periods?). they chronicle Archy's adventures, as well as those of his friend Mehitabel the cat, and their interactions with other insects, animals, people, and even ghosts. I found them somewhat difficult to follow (probably because they were originally written as newspaper columns, not to be published in a book), and there's certainly no plot, though sometimes there are stories that go on over several installments. However, the characters are amusing and sometimes wise. It's also interesting to see a cockroach's view on Prohibition--the columns were originally written in the 1910s and '20s.
I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate these books. They're certainly not my usual fare. In fact, I only read them because my high school boyfriend gave me the second one--I just recently managed to find the first.
They are poems, or stories or articles constructed like poems, ostensibly written by a cockroach named Archy. Archy writes by flinging himself headfirst onto typewriter keys, so there are no capital letters, though I'm at a loss to explain the lack of punctuation (surely he could at least manage periods?). they chronicle Archy's adventures, as well as those of his friend Mehitabel the cat, and their interactions with other insects, animals, people, and even ghosts. I found them somewhat difficult to follow (probably because they were originally written as newspaper columns, not to be published in a book), and there's certainly no plot, though sometimes there are stories that go on over several installments. However, the characters are amusing and sometimes wise. It's also interesting to see a cockroach's view on Prohibition--the columns were originally written in the 1910s and '20s.