Grenelle, by Isabelle Holland

[rachelmanija]

The opening page of Holland's thriller Grenelle is so bad in so many different ways that I feel compelled to quote the entire thing:

The scandal, a typhoon in a thimble, broke one windy autumn morning and caused, at the beginning, and before anyone connected it with that sad, unexplained death, far more raucous and ribald amusement than it did

Comments

[spectralbovine]

SO MANY COMMAS.

[thomasyan]

I know. I read that first sentence and winced. Geeze, did I write that in a past life? Of course, commas are not needed for confusion. Consider these two sentences:

Police police police police police police.

The mouse the cat the dog the jester the queen liked petted chased bit died.

[spectralbovine]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

The mouse the cat the dog the jester the queen liked petted chased bit died.
That is brilliantly recursive. I love it.

[thomasyan]

That's a good one. I can't parse your Buffalo sentence.

That is brilliantly recursive. I love it.

Apparently that kind of "stacking" is called center embedding and is generally hard for people to understand. It is probably a good thing I don't want kids, because I'm really curious whether if, exposed to deep center embedding from birth, kids would learn to deal with it.

Of course, if they did, they could then use it to confuse/confound/bypass adults. (Like using very high-pitched ringtones that adults cannot hear for their cellphone rings.)

[spectralbovine]

That's a good one. I can't parse your Buffalo sentence.
Oh, that's a famous one! It has its own Wikipedia entry.

Also fun is this one, although it needs punctuation to make sense.

It is probably a good thing I don't want kids, because I'm really curious whether if, exposed to deep center embedding from birth, kids would learn to deal with it.
Ha!