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.]
