The Pirate Adventures
By Gideon Defoe
Reviewed by
Kenny Brechner
Even if you’ve never been run through with a very sharp cutlass, there’s nothing preventing you from properly enjoying Gideon Defoe’s One hundred and eighty eight Pirate adventure books. It is true that only two of them have been published yet, namely The Pirates! In and Adventure with Ahab, and The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists!, but it is important to bear in mind that The Pirates! In an adventure with Communists will be released on October 31st. As to the other one hundred and eighty five Pirate adventures which are listed and advertised at the end of The Pirates! In and Adventure with Ahab, such as The Pirates in an Adventure with Rabbits, the Pirates in an Adventure with Risk Management, and The Pirates in an Adventure with Slum Landlords, one isn’t quite sure if they are real books or only a funny list of other Pirate adventures which most certainly happened.
What we can say with certainty, though, is that first, The Pirates, Two Novels in One, by Gideon Dafoe, 9.95 list price, just published by Vintage books, contains two of the funniest books one has ever read. Second, The Pirates, Two Novels in One, by Gideon Dafoe,(Hereafter TPTNiO,bGD) is one of the funniest 2 books to ever be reprinted as a two books in one volume. Third, That TPTNiO,bGD, at 9.95 list price, is one of the greatest values of all time for a book that, at one and the same time, is incredibly funny and reasonably priced. Fourth, that the one hundred and eighty five Pirate adventures listed in TPTNiO,bGD would be as funny and entertaining as TPTNiO,bGD. Fifth, Since The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists is coming out on October 31st, anyone who loved TPTNiO,bGD, or who will have loved TPTNiO,bGD by October 31st, should be excited and pleased.
TPTNiO,bGD are accounts of
the adventures of The Pirate Captain and his crew with Charles Darwin, Ahab, The
White Whale, The Manpanzee, An Evil Bishop, Jennifer, Black Bellamy, Cutlass
Liz, and many other notable persons. As to the technical reasons why these two
books in one are so funny and so entertaining, just as with a successful souffle,
the ingredients and execution of a successful farce are a matter of delicacy and
difficulty, made to look seamless. Constant energy and dynamic pacing, just
right proportions of absurdity, likeable characters, great good will and good
spirit, TPTNiO,bGD has them all. And really, there is just as much to be said
for laughing out loud over and over again while reading a book as there is for a
very sharp cutlass and a luxuriant beard.
