BOOK GROUPIE: Unpleasant protagonist a hoot

To write a funny book with an unfriendly main character is risky business. Most people want to read about characters they’d go out to dinner with or invite to a party, not ones they’d move across town to avoid.

The last book I read with an unappealing main character was John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces.” I recommended that book in this column, and received many delighted messages from Gazette readers who followed my recommendation.

Recently, I stumbled upon another book whose unpleasant main character caused me almost as much laughter as Toole’s Ignatius J. Reilly.

In Alexander McCall Smith’s “Portuguese Irregular Verbs,” Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is a self-consumed eccentric who’s determined to win respect in the world of philology, the study of historical linguistics.

While seeking power and prestige, von Igelfeld shares ill-fated adventures with two other German professors.

During the course of the short book, von Igelfeld learns how not to play tennis with his two friends, enters one of the men in a fencing duel (the result is a nipped-off nose tip) and loses a potential mate to the other man. The humor in “Verbs” is quite unusual and may not be for everyone.

I was willing to risk whether I’d appreciate the humor in “Verbs,” because I checked it out online from the Pikes Peak Library District’s CyberShelf. Readers unfamiliar with downloading e-books from the CyberShelf can attend a free class at 8:30 a.m. May 13th at Penrose Library.

For those who do not have an e-reader and would like to sample reading on one, the PPLD currently has 50 Nooks available for loan. Each e-reader comes pre-loaded with 20 popular titles.

The e-readers check out for a standard three-week period and can be returned to any library.

Readers who sample a library e-reader will probably consider buying one of their own. With great books like “Verbs” available for free through the library, e-readers may quickly pay for themselves.
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Miller welcomes book suggestions. Read her blog at www.anitalay donmiller.blogspot.com or email anita.l.miller@att.net.