This is a strange wee beastie. The edition I have was published in 1998, and I must have bought it then or not long after. I vaguely remember reading a bit of it and finding it amazing, really powerful. And I obviously started it, because I had a bookmark in it, a few pages in.

But every time I’ve had a look at it since, it hasn’t really grabbed me. Until recently, when I started it again.

And… I’ve no idea what I saw in it back then. It’s a work of surrealism, but it’s just wilfully obscure. Every sentence is grammatically and syntactically sound, but semantically meaningless. It purports to be a catalogue or almanac of a society, with sections titled ‘Sleep’, ‘God’, ‘Food’, and so on. And within them chapters, or short stories, called ‘Sky Destroys Dog’,‘Ethics of Listening When Visiting Areas That Contain Him’, ‘Hidden Ball Inside a Song’.

It can be strangely compelling in places, almost reaching the level of poetry. But mostly it’s a bit of a chore to get through. If I hadn’t had it and kept it so long I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

A very curious work.