Adverbs - BookWyrm

Hardcover, 288 pages

English language

Published April 11, 2006 by Ecco.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-072441-2
OCLC Number:: 61362193

Hello. I am Daniel Handler, the author of this book. Did you know that authors often write the summaries that appear on their book's dust jacket? You might want to think about that the next time you read something like, "A dazzling page-turner, this novel shows an internationally acclaimed storyteller at the height of his astonishing powers."

"Adverbs" is a novel about love -- a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. At the start of the novel, Andrea is in love with David -- or maybe it's Joe -- who instead falls in love with Peter in a taxi. At the end of the novel, it's Joe who's in the taxi, falling in love with Andrea, although it might not be Andrea, or in any case it might not be the same Andrea, as Andrea is a very common name. So is Allison, …

Hello. I am Daniel Handler, the author of this book. Did you know that authors often write the summaries that appear on their book's dust jacket? You might want to think about that the next time you read something like, "A dazzling page-turner, this novel shows an internationally acclaimed storyteller at the height of his astonishing powers."

"Adverbs" is a novel about love -- a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. At the start of the novel, Andrea is in love with David -- or maybe it's Joe -- who instead falls in love with Peter in a taxi. At the end of the novel, it's Joe who's in the taxi, falling in love with Andrea, although it might not be Andrea, or in any case it might not be the same Andrea, as Andrea is a very common name. So is Allison, who is married to Adrian in the middle of the novel, although in the middle of the ocean she considers a fling with Keith and also with Steve, whom she meets in an automobile, unless it's not the same Allison who meets the Snow Queen in a casino, or the same Steve who meets Eddie in the middle of the forest. . . .

It might sound confusing, but that's love, and as the author -- me -- says, "It is not the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done." This novel is about people trying to find love in the ways it is done before the volcano erupts and the miracle ends. Yes, there's a volcano in the novel. In my opinion a volcano automatically makes a story more interesting

3 editions

nekokat reviewed Adverbs by Daniel Handler

Review of 'Adverbs' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

On reread this speaks to me a little less, though it's still quite cleverly-written (sometimes too cleverly?). Maybe I've become less cynical. I do still enjoy the way the stories all interconnect and how the characters in the spotlight, and your understanding of them and of what's happening to them, keeps shifting.

--- original review [July 5, 2008] ---

Exquisite, clever, wistful, hilarious, wise. There is so much truth in some of the stories that you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Sort of like 69 Love Songs in story form. If I wanted to have Daniel Handler's children after reading his work as Lemony Snicket, it is doubly and triply true now.