Ranting as form

I've blogged before about being interested in different forms writers use. I blogged here about epistolary novels I'd been reading, and about the Amazon fiction, and also about some flash fiction here.

But the book I have recently finished is a new one on me. 

I came across Daniel Handler's book Why We Broke Up, because someone tweeted about the pictures in it. Yes, there are lovely painted illustrations by Maira Kalman. But they aren't just pictures. No, no, they are so much more than that, but more of that later.

And on the basis of the title and it being YA contemporary I ordered it in. (See how little it takes with me? So easy to sway - but some people like that about me.)

Having got the book I found out that  Daniel Handler is in fact none other than Lemony Snicket. Now, I know that Lemony Snicket isn't a real person, and I daresay I've seen numerous things which have outed his real name, but I hadn't been paying attention, and suffice to say the information was greeted with a groan. Some years ago I bought and read all of the thirteen parts of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I was so disappointed with the end, that I turfed them out immediately. (That's a reader scorned for you, hell hath no fury...)

Nevertheless I did read it, and I have to say that I prefer Handler to Snicket.

But here’s the thing that I wanted to flag up; this story is told through the medium of Rant.

Min, has broken up with Ed ( no spoilers here, as it says what it is on the tin..), and  Min has collected the “prizes and debris” from their time together in a box which she is delivering to his door.  And on the way over, she rants about how she has got to be in this situation in a missive to Ed. And it is a heartbroken, angry, humiliated and hopefully cathartic rant, the likes of which many may recognize from their teen years. It even gets so ranty at one point, that I couldn't keep up with the sense of it and had to go back and re-read it when I knew the outcome. (I definitely remember those rants as a teen where my train of thought was heading all over the shop, yet it still made sense to me if nobody else.)

 Min feels the need to tell Ed what he has done, explaining her hurt, even though Ed might not care or might be oblivious, and her telling is glorious. I distinctly recall writing a letter like that myself once, complete with toe-curling references to song lyrics. Thank God I burnt it.) 
I love the idea of 350 pages of ranting.

But there’s more...  It is also an inventory, and this is where the pictures come in.

 There are no chapters in the book, but instead it is divided into segments pertaining to each item in the box, which deftly leads us through the five weeks Ed and Min were together. And each item has a picture. I do love a good tweak to the standard Chapter heading or number, such as the inclusion of  temperatures in Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver. There the temperatures, as they drop, have their own little narrative, without the need to cover it in the text. In the same way, the illustrations here flag each new chapter and remove any cumbersome need to describe each object.  In addition, some of the illustrations are strategically placed, so like in the best picture books, the turn of the page can bring a shock, or a joke or a revelation.

So this was a book that I really enjoyed having in my hands, as much for its construction and form and illustrations as purely for its story, energy and the nostalgia.
Toe-curling memories aside, good things can come from a proper rant.