Book of Nonsense

3.5 stars
Technically the title admits that it is filled with nonsense and it does not lie. It's filled with disconnected quintains. Some of them are fun, some of them present new words that can be googled and learned, some poems seem to say: Learn geography with Lear! There are some slightly gruesome ones with people dying in uncommon ways and it seems to be kink with Lear, but whatever keeps his boat floating!

Things I liked:
1: The invention of words. My favorite: ombliferous. I think we should invite gen Z to a Lear reading party and have them find uses for those unknown, made up words and popularize them.
2: Edward Lear said: away with toxic masculinity and I love it!
ㅤㅤㅤ"There was an Old Man with a poker,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤWho painted his face with red oker;
ㅤㅤㅤㅤWhen they said, “You’re a Guy!”
ㅤㅤㅤㅤHe made no reply,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤBut knocked them all down with his poker."
3: Some of the poems appear like writing prompts inviting someone else to make a story out of them, since a lot of the people he writes about are a little bit off and fantasy authors do love to write about characters with strange quirks. Examples:
ㅤㅤㅤ1: "There was an Old Person of Cromer,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤWho stood on one leg to read Homer"
ㅤㅤㅤ2: "There was an Old Person of Tring,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤWho embellished his nose with a ring;
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHe gazed at the moon,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤEvery evening in June"
ㅤㅤㅤ3: "He built a balloon, To examine the moon"

*Only got to read an edition with 112 poems and no illustrations, so I might be severely lacking in some other fun stuff.*

Here are my blog comments about this book. I would love to hear answers to my questions at the end:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Reading this as a child, I absolutely loved this. A decade or so later, I think the author must have been on drugs.
I'm blaming this book for the start of the corruption of my sanity.

I just don't think limericks are for me.

A TUTOR WHO TOOTED THE FLUTE
TRIED TO TUTOR TWO TOOTERS TO TOOT.
SAID THE TWO TO THE TUTOR:
“IS IT HARDER TO TOOT OR
TO TUTOR TWO TOOTERS TO TOOT?”

Misery loves drollery!

So seems to have said the Victorian gent Edward Lear, who was plagued by major illnesses all of his life...

Grand mal epilepsy, asthma, near-blindness, and severe depression were his poor lot in life (though it didn't stop him from pursuing a respectable career in drafting and illustration).

And, incredibly, he was the Father of the Limerick (but who knows if he penned that childhood limerick we all love, Two TOOTERS?)..

But definitely not the risqué type. For Edward lived in a polite era, and wrote ne’er a naughty word.

His limericks are sheer nonsense - all as fluffy as freshly-made meringue - in contrast to the hardened, baked crust that sealed off his days with gloom.

If he had seen the crude limericks of twenty first-century schoolkids he would have rued the day he made this artform a polite household word. No, folks - his limericks are not based on groping double entendres.

They’re brought on by a profound appreciation of life’s tragedies, and these are his harmless escape from them!

We’ve said that Lear had more than his share of things to complain about.

Well, that suffering turned his view of life around... in a miraculous “sea-change/ into something rich and strange” as the Bard’s oft-quoted song sings.

For he had discovered the Absurd.

People afflicted with the Absurd express it in widely varying ways...

Camus embraced the Life Force completely and defiantly, as long as he had it.

Sartre turned to dark philosophy and grim petulance.

Mallarme went them one better in reaction, and became the unlikely Resident Sylph of the higher Abstract Realms of great poetry.

But Lear, like me, saw the wisdom of the ancient, tried and true sage wisdom: “what can ya do about it? Ya gotta LAUGH!” Haha.

And laugh he did.

Sure, like Pessoa, he knew disquiet. For that’s endemic to the Absurd.

But did he cry? Sure, buckets!

Did he complain? Plenty, but no one’s ever listening.

But he knew when the Law barks at you, as it’s been known to do, ‘Better Keep in Line!’ he’d better play in tune - on the Lighter Side!

Now THAT’s socially acceptable.

And a boon to the similarly afflicted!

But he even did the Law one better on that score, for, after all, like Ionesco and Pirandello he saw the Law as Absurdly Hilarious, and he relaxed his audience - by being old-fashioned and corny.

Now here’s a harmless and talented guy, they all said...

Because these rhymes are all such trite nonsense, I've given them 3 stars. I expected BELLY laughs, and only managed strained polite smiles for the most part, such as Edward would have received from his prim lady friends.

But you can put that down to my paltry pension budget and my grimmer senior’s outlook. And often, in finding a deal I’m quickly disappointed.

This book is a budget buy of a bygone year, but if you’re parsimonious like I am, you try to give each mistake another chance, and take it down from the shelf again.

And Lear is Lear, and this book takes me right back to that day in our middle school library when I opened these limericks as something to memorize and entertain my chums with.

I had bought a supermarket mini-paperback of rhymes in the summer of ‘62 and never for a moment expected it to be ribald and sassy... yikes!

So that fall, back in school, I whiled away one library period with my memorizing Lear. What a kid I was.

In the spring I even memorized Macauley’s rhyme about Horatio at the Bridge. You don’t see THAT in schoolbooks in these with-it days!

And Lear, at least in Grade 8, was fun too. It was a more widely-inclusive selection of rhymes than this one...

But given the sheer weight of care and darkness this man must have lived under, it's a wonder he could have any fun at all!

And WE are of course the clear winners in receiving the gift of that drollery from him.

Especially the KIDS at heart among us!

The absurdity is especially delightful to experience alongside a child.

A few funny limericks in this now dated book from the mid 19th century.
Edward Lear made the limerick his own and went on to write more books of "nonsense" after this one. I believe he wrote 212 limericks in total.

There was a young man named Ed Lear,
Whose verses could bring on a tear,
And they were ever so funny
Plus he wrote them for money,
But you'll laugh at them all, never fear!