From: GraceAnne A. DeCandido <ladyhawk>
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 09:46:32 -0400

In answering the second part of Linnea's comments, below: reviewers do try, I think, to place books in literary context. Certainly Booklist, for example, really encourages us to fit in a comment like -- if you loved X, then you will love this.

I would also like to be a bit subversive here. I don't think Arlene Sardine is about death at all, except maybe the way the children's verse "Found a peanut" is about death. I don't think it is about vegetarianism. I think it is an offbeat, wacky, deeply silly way of looking at a sardine can and running a jazz riff on it. It recalls the kind of free association children do -- usually only in their heads -- about the most commonplace of objects. I didn't say this in my review, but I wish I had related it to the Stinky Cheese Man, which is I think its closest recent soul mate. GraceAnne (sig file below)



GraceAnne A. DeCandido Blue Roses Editorial & Web Consulting, New York City ladyhawk at well.com http://www.well.com/user/ladyhawk/gadhome.html What's Ladyhawk reading now? http://www.well.com/user/ladyhawk/books.html

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Received on Thu 24 Sep 1998 08:46:32 AM CDT