On Book Titles and other tittle-tattle.

Anticipating the recent trend of publishers’ book titles
of a sometimes clever and witty nature,
having some, little or no relevance to

The Content of Books,
such as:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

and others… (whose memorability is such that they have temporarily slipped his mind)

the noted Fellow,
Aloysius F. Kattelbaum, here published his

Authoritative Iteration of Entitlements

in which he lists,
for those authors for whom

The Absence of Ideas

for a title of their own is a problem,

and, being himself primarily,
The Man of Letters

he begins with

The Articulation of Alphabets:

The Prefixing of -Ase.

The Knitting of Bees

The Circumscription of Seas

De -nunciation of Dese

The Taking of Ease

The Upping of Gees

The Dropping of ’Aitches

The Selfishness of Eyes

The -ing of Eff’s

The Jabbering of Jays

The Cataloguing of Kays

The Measuring of Ells

The Spectre of EMS

The Absence of Ens

The Burden of Owes

The Mushing of Peas

The Annoyance of Queues

The Wiping of Ars

The Repetition of Esses

The Irritation of Teas

The Bleating of Ewes

The Signing of Vees

The Cloning of Double-You’s

The Suing of Ex’s

The Asking of Why’s

The Bedding of Zeds

and so, Aloysius M. Mittelbaum
proceeds on to

A Series of Suggestions:

The Execution of Sentences

The Particularity of Paragraphs

The Partiality of Phrases

The Interruption of Parentheses

The Absurdity of Words

The Denunciation of Nouns.

The Preposterousness of Prepositions

The Accompanying of Adjectives

The Lying of Adverbs

The Closure of Consonants

The Openness of Vowels

(with apologies for

The Unevenness of Originality)

until,
our esteemed author,
Aloysius S. S. Stutterbaum,
finally questions:

The Primacy of Titles

The Perniciousness of Trends

noting that most titles are
agreed by committee
as a result of a

A Concatenation of Circumstances

beyond the poor author’s control.

[As are the covers, he suggests,
designed, precisely from precis,
as instant indentifiers
of Genre,

The Leibfraumilch of Literature

or of Style,

The Sine Qua Non of Design

in either case, for

The Followers of Fads.]

[Like Sebastian’s friend, Aloysius cannot bear not to be the centre of attention and affection and so I am forced to indulge my flighty friend now and again – it makes him feel wanted.]