The Gashlycrumb Tinies
by Edward Gorey

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Book Reviews of The Gashlycrumb Tinies

Book Review: epitomizing humor in subject matter indescribably appalling
Summary: 5 Stars

We entered the store, a shabby, ill-lighted affair, complete with an appropriately seedy bohemian proprietor with spectacles and surly cat, and my father told Hope and me each could have any book we liked. Being twelve, and as yet unfettered by adolescent yearnings, I perused the shelves and shelves of books, eschewing the vulgarities of sports and camping tomes, until landing upon a three book set of Gorey's uniquely humoros books.

Dad, true to his word, bought the books for me, some trivial rubbish about ribbons for Hope, and we drove home to the Jersey Shore in the dark; my ride in the back seat beside my younger sibling, normally as much fun as being seated on an ant hill, now quite the thing due to Gorey's books. I had the small up-light on and in its shallow luminescence, I read each poetic demise accompanied by laughter.

In the interim years my sense of humor was influenced by Gorey's ghastly humor, making my later entrance into the American equivalent of your Public Schools, almost palatable. Eventually, through fealty to the mark of a good mind being manifested by lack of organizational acumen,I lost or misplaced the Gorey books, and it was not until last week I found the Gashlycrumb Tinies here on Amazon UK. I ordered it and in two days it was in my mail box, awaiting my return from a day at work that would render senseless any healthy rhinocerous.

How do I adequately express the joy and laughter I experienced once I sat down after supper and let my eyes wander over those simple yet uproarious pages? In the thirty-five years since I first read the book I had all but forgotten about Gorey and his array of small tots done in by circumstance or an overly inquisitive nature.

Having the book now reminds me of a time in my life when all books were fascinating; surely a boon to one so annoyed by all that is printed today being mostly mundane in the extreme.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies still makes me laugh, its macabre subject matter still fascinates me the way Karloff's voice did uttering even something so simple as "Good-day, Doctor," and I am transported back to an earlier time when, though still a child, I was given entrance to the world of adult humor.

I recommend this book to anyone with a sense of absurdist humor, and will conclude that even one so inherently obtuse as a "Yank in the Colonies" might still draw such enjoyment from so gifted an author, so unfortunate an array of aphabetized tots on their way to a "better place."

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