A while back, I wrote about my thrilling new hobby. And, setting all false modesty aside, I'm proud to report that in just a few short weeks, I've skyrocketed up the reviewer charts to #23,907. Watch out, grillo7 of Kenai, Alaska -- you're GOING DOWN!
Ahem. Of course, it's not all fun and games. For some unexplicable reason, the editors decided to pull my review of this decidedly presidential work. I can't imagine why:
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
A masterpiece of semiotics -- and phonics, August 20, 2004
"My Pet Goat," the story at the physical and spiritual center of this collection of stories for the emerging semiotician, is at once more and less than the sum of its parts. When the narrator talks about the goat's propensity to eat anything in sight -- hats, capes, even Diebold records -- she perfectly embodies the spirit of the proud pet owner, willing to tolerate, even brag, about their pet's foibles. Yet when the goat -- at once both the story's protagonist and antagonist -- successfully wards off a mustachioed car thief considered an imminent threat by the narrator's avuncular, somewhat secretive father figure, one is left to wonder: Do the ends justify the means? Do they ever?
I rarely delve into the realm of the personal in my reviews, but here I must make an exception. I've often found my thoughts returning to this masterwork, only to discover that it had sparked in me a thirst for knowledge that no amount of brush clearing or pretzel consumption could quench. I am a changed person, and hopefully a better one, for having read My Pet Goat.
Damn you, uptight editors, damn you!