The Gnome King reviewed Your Dark Meaning, Mouse by Stephen Moles
Review of 'Your Dark Meaning, Mouse' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
What is a Buckarastano? This book starts of with this question, I had no idea what it was, and according to Microsoft’s red squiggly line they don’t know either. Luckily I have now read this field guide and I understand what it is and the dangers it represents….unfortunately that’s where all understanding ends for me with regards this absurd book.
What have I read here? Moles mixes poetry, theatre, essays, diagrams and stories to mess with the reader’s consciousness; when I read collections of short stories I love to look for the links between each story, in this book I was left scratching my head, “is that a link?” “Hang on! It’s those blooming Ravens again” were thoughts I kept having. Somehow Moles has taken the “normal” tenuous links in short story collections and created a vortex that it is quite impossible to escape from, I kept seeing the same …
What is a Buckarastano? This book starts of with this question, I had no idea what it was, and according to Microsoft’s red squiggly line they don’t know either. Luckily I have now read this field guide and I understand what it is and the dangers it represents….unfortunately that’s where all understanding ends for me with regards this absurd book.
What have I read here? Moles mixes poetry, theatre, essays, diagrams and stories to mess with the reader’s consciousness; when I read collections of short stories I love to look for the links between each story, in this book I was left scratching my head, “is that a link?” “Hang on! It’s those blooming Ravens again” were thoughts I kept having. Somehow Moles has taken the “normal” tenuous links in short story collections and created a vortex that it is quite impossible to escape from, I kept seeing the same thing again and again and yet maybe I hadn’t see anything at all. It really does mess with your mind, you shouldn’t read this book if you are not prepared to give it your full attention.
As I was reading this I assumed it was all made up so I decided to google a few of the statements…turns out the total of the numbers on a roulette wheel and the message on Shakespeare’s grave were 100% accurate, I can only assume then that everything in this book is true. The sense of humour is very wicked, all the Beatles experiments/theories had me laughing big time and trying to explain it my family. There are also some very good lines, I especially liked the altered version of The Beatles song “When I’m Sixty Four”. The writing at times felt a bit like Hunter S. Thompson, with the author putting himself into the story and there is even a short story called “Hell’s Academics”, which is another fine moment.
This is a very good book, I’ve enjoyed the experience of it’s madness, I’ve most definitely not understood all that has gone down but I think that’s the point, it’s all part of the experience. One question I am left with is, “like Spider-Man this book messes with the Multiverse, therefore should it get it’s very own Marvel franchise?”
Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/your-dark-meaning-mouse-by-stephen-moles/