September 30, 2012
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One Two Many Horses: JS Reviews “Fifty Sheds of Neigh”
Only if you’ve been living away in a manger could you possibly have failed to notice this best-seller, by the author of ‘One, Two, Many commas’. That short volume, on punctuation, of all things, was a delight to read; I learned how to use the semi-colon from it, kinda.
And so I was primed when I heard that “Fifty Sheds of Neigh”, also by Dewey Pferde, had taken win, place, and show on the NYT Book Review list. And, I was intrigued by the mixed reviews it got; Deborah Friedman slammed it, calling the book ‘…50 grades of hay for a Horse with no Name!’, whatever that’s supposed to imply. Reviewers, you know. But now that I’ve dragged my carcass through all 634 pages I kinda have to agree with her. Yeah, ‘one two many horses’, in fact 49, mebbe 50 too many.The story opens by describing E.Questrian Grue, a filthy-rich pretentious heir and refrigerator magnate who has purchased a long rectangular gentleman’s horse-farm out along Highway 51, and soon builds separate quarters for each of his filly flings, aquired one at a time. Being used to having his way, he initially specifies ‘hearse-racing’ as the business description, thus avoiding the bothersome intrusion of Dep’t of Agriculture inspectors. At a local watering hole one night, where he is schmoozing the town’s zoning officer, he overhears talk of a drop-dead gorgeous filly, and buys her on the spot, sight-unseen, and decidedly drunk.
And so into this unstable stable trots ‘Miss Anesthesia’, a lithe two-year old filly with three
wins already at Pimlico under her saddle and a summer place at Hialeah. They meet cute, of course, and have sex until morning in a chapter-long episode which had the book banned in Florida for a spell. (they called the pair ‘promiscuous.)
On awakening, Grue changes Anasthesia’s name, calling it ‘lacking feeling’, to an unpronounceable word, the name for the Great Auk in Maori. The stable-hands soon call her ‘Miss Auk-word’, which leads to some tense moments.
By this time he’s had 50 sheds erected. Miss Auk insists on being housed in the one nearest to Questy’s heart. This necessitates moving each of the other horses one building down the line, an effort which consumes another perhaps 129 pages, sort of an ‘Arabian Nights’ aside, with vignettes of horses vying for the right to stay where they were, at the expense of their
‘neigh’-bors.
And so on. And so on. And so damned on. They fight, they make up, they make out, another name make-over: (Missy Auk demands and wins the right to be called ‘The Horse formerly known as Anesthesia.’ This after ‘Black Beauty’ was a no-go since she is a roan, and ‘Sleeping Beauty’, while clever and referential, has lethargic connotations in racing circles.
Ok, you probably want to know whether to buy the book. Or download it, after I’ve kindled your curiosity.
Well, you can’t. It doesn’t exist. I made it all up and I’m sorry. Probably a little fuzzy kitten getting run over by a dump-truck right now, as we speak, and it’s all my fault. But you guessed that. Plus I hated it anyway. Nothing racy-harnessy here, folks. Moby Dick was hotter.
Comments (22)
Moby Dick was hotter…. ha. well, at least that name is kinda hot.
who wants to buy a book when one can read you?
@seedsower - Oy, yer so first-grade, Beth. In a good way though ♥
@promisesunshine - Yeah, ironic, ain’t it. I’ve read just horrid reviews of the object of my satire here. And of course. the guy-thing in me is sure he coulda done it better. So nice to hear you liked my review.
Vonnegut once disparaged the semicolon; I didn’t agree with his assessment of their superfluity. So it goes.
Ya kinda lost me at what was either a parse failure on my part or a foray into bestiality in your fiction. I don’t know why Florida would ban a story about horse humping, since it seems to be a relatively popular pastime out that-a-way. I read an article about this not so long ago, thought I’d search for it to link to it… turns out there’s more than one. All in the South, too. Strangeness abounds.
@jsolberg - I like to think of it as more Jr High. I can not tell when to use a colon or semi colon, I just use commas and hope no one notices.
@HappierHeathen - Sorry for the perhaps mixed msgs here. The barb is that FL would only complain about promiscuity, not bestiality.
I haven’t read the ‘target’ book, only saw it panned by lots of folks. One, Two, Many, Commas is a parody of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. And I knock Prince the Aankh a bit also. Simple wordplay, mainly
@seedsower - Ha, so do I. Folks disagree. Is it ‘The Dog, Pony, and Horse show’, or should we kill the comma after the Pony? (Ha, or kill the pony first?) That kinda thing.
@jsolberg - Sorry about my parse failure. There’s a chunk of my brain that freaks out over animals and childrens being harmed, is all. Nuthin’ to worry about, at least not on the outside.
I never gave the other 50 a thought until I read your made up version here. Wiki let me in on some of the things you wrote. Thanks, now I’m completely disturbed.
@sleekpunk - Ah ‘disturbed’. The word has fallen out of fashion, unjustifiably in my opinion.
Be not afraid though. I think of you as a seasoned pro in wars, kultural and otherwise.
(And I also had to wiki the tome, then take a long shower.)
I recognized the nod to Discworld trolls, and I think I’ve read about the book in question.
I’m a devotee of the Oxford comma, but use a semicolon maybe once a year. The term makes me think of a friend with Crohns who had radical surgery that removed several yards of his small intestine. Not really a laughing matter, but I can’t stop those impulses from jumping their synaptic tracks.
My kids say that the BBC is planning a series called The Watch. If they get anyone other than the guy who played Arthur Weasley to be Sgt. Colon, I will be sorely disappointed. He’s perfect for the part. There are rumors that Hugh Laurie would play Vimes, which is a little hard to picture but might work. I hope they can produce something of the caliber of the current Dr Who series. (Too bad Marty Feldman isn’t around to play Nobby Nobs.)
Mostly Dick, a story about a giant penis spraying all over Wales, with an angry Arab capstan just behing watchin for when she blows; hunting him for making him hop about when we all know that too much fishy activity makes your knees fall off. Or rather, I think that is what i’s all about.
As for molesting ponies, now you’re just being filly.
Oh, comma on, proper usage is just based on comm’an sense. Or horse sense, in this case.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Marty Feldman is/was a comedic genius. As to ‘Annkh’, I’d forgotten that Pratchet picked that up, I’d thought it was just a ‘Prince’ thing.
Lots of references in here, and as always a joy to have you get them.
@Lovegrove - You might have read a ‘different’ Melville, ha.
Speaking of changes, I’m considering a name change, to ‘S’ganiel’ which nicely means, in perfect Hebrew ‘G-d is my co-pilot’. Wondering why nobody else thought of that for 3000 years. Oh yeah, the Wright Bros and all that rot.
@twoberry - I use, on Monday, Wed, and Fri, the Oxford comma, which leaves four days for the colonial version. Jus covering my bases here.
@jsolberg - Sounds like a sub-breed of spaniel or is that Spaniard? Either way, I’d prefer neither to marry my daughter and take her out of Her Majesty’s realm to some barbarian wilderness beyond Dorset. But I digress as is my wont.
What I really wanted to know was what is the orange crop like this year on the Kipper, or is that Kipputz? I always get those two mixed up. That’s why whenever I order fish over the internet, I always seem to have a multitude of well armed Hebrews knocking on my front door demanding kosher sandwiches. They always go away though when I tell ‘em I don’t have any cosy sand or indeed witches. At which point, they trundle off muttering in 57 varieties of Germanic and Slavic dialect “gentle count”. I think that was what they said.
@Lovegrove - Orange groves are mainly abandoned, sadly. Global competition broke our arses on that one. And yeah, language is always fraught with confusion. ‘Gentle count’? I think I can guess.
Include Ian amongst the meek and exclude Otto from the nobility.
I must applaud again. “Fridge magnate” and “lacking feeling” were the best bits mouthed.
@gnostic1 - Your zinger validation…um.. validates me. Thought of you of course with the whole name-change ‘segment’.
(I did just now open a restaurant convenient to you, in my last post. Hey, wot are friends for?