Eunoia: The Upgraded Edition

In this book Bok utilizes only one vowel in each chapter. This tricky constraint is used to weave colorful narratives out of 95% of the English lexicon that only contains one vowel. I could spend hours with these sentences. Many of us intuit a reiterative, cellular shape in our daily lives- the standardization of standardization, disclaimers for disclaimers, and infinite spirals of red tape. Many artists, writers, whoever are responding to this Cartesian issue of division and taxonomy. By using this constraint, Christian Bok is tapping this fountain with such eloquence that I have placed him on the top shelf of my hierarchical shelving unit with Peter Greenaway and Jorge Luis Borges. Don't they look good together???

People say this book is a mere literary exercise. I found it profoundly beautiful and moving. It takes the language by the scruff of the vowels and wrings from it melodies and images most poets could not have begun to imagine. Having read it through, twice, I keep it by my bedside and sip from it constantly. Amazing Bok, clever delightful Eunoia father, great hero in jazzy knowing lexolatry... I could go on.

I was prompted to buy a copy of Eunoia after hearing Christian Bok reading excerpts on the radio. I devoured the book in one sitting, turning each page with greater anticipation, relishing each example of verbal ingenuity. To me, that's what Eunoia is essentially about - sheer brilliance. This book is the result of a titanic cerebral initiative and it comes off flawlessly. I've lent this book to dozens of people, and to be honest, not everyone has appreciated it in the same way I have. Some people have read the first page and handed it back saying "I don't get it" or "it makes my head hurt". Clearly, this book is not for everyone. If you have a passion for language you will love this book. If you like word-play, you will love this book. If you appreciate "cleverness" you will love this book. I smiled the whole way through it out of sheer amazement and disbelief. By far the best thing I've read this year, and something that I will continue to revisit over the years to come.

Christian Bok's Eunoia is not only brilliant, but it's very funny and reads quickly. I just wanted to add to the previous review that Eunoia recently won the Griffin Poetry Prize. It's been a best-seller in Canada for awhile. More on the Griffin prize can be found [on the web] it's the most prestigious Canadian award for poetry. If you like other OULIPO authors, Dr. Seuss & othre funny crazy stuff (tho not for the kids), sound poetry, innovative poetry, etc. you'll like this book. Check out other things Coach House has to offer, too. They're a smallish press but they publish amazing stuff. Also if you like Eunoia you should try Christian's other book, Crystallography. It's more visually oriented than Eunoia but just as enjoyable.

Christian Bök's Eunoia is becoming a fast hit among those with actual "colored-letter" synesthesia.Christian Bök based part of his ideas for Eunoia off the concept of synesthesia, mainly borrowing from Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Voyelles" (the strangely-colored cover design for the book is also based upon the same). In "Voyelles", Rimbaud creates correspondences between colors and letters of the alphabet (or, more specifically, the written symbols - the graphemes) for vowels. Synesthesia is an actually existing, albeit rare, set of benign neurological conditions. Overwhelmingly, the most common (perhaps as common as existing in 1 out of every 750 people) form of synesthesia involves involuntary, automatic correspondences made between colors and graphemes (letter and number characters). This type of synesthesia is apparently genetically-based (that is, organic, and not psychologically based upon childhood associations), and usually emerges around the age of six or seven years of age. Those with "colored-letter" synesthesia generally maintain it throughout life, with virtually no variations in the color-letter correspondences. They have no choice as to which colors are associated with which letters and are stuck with the links throughout life. Also, each individual synesthete's total set of color-letter correspondences is unique, although there are certain trends to be found world-wide with certain graphemes, such as "A" being red and "O" being white or clear amongst about two-thirds of all such synesthetes.Rimbaud was not a colored-letter synesthete; he admits that he made up the correspondences in his (in-)famous poem.However, now, true colored-letter synesthetes are finding Bök's book either an overwhelming thrill or nightmare. To those without this form of synesthesia, the pages of Bök's book - each page using one and only one vowel for all words - glare with the profusion of the particular vowel. For the actual colored-letter synesthete, each particular page tends to totally overwhelm with a particular color. I have received letters from synesthetes writing in rapturous awe of how a certain chapter of Eunoia sweep them with the "icy whiteness of O", or how it is a nightmare with simply too much red "A" (even though, to Rimbaud, "A" was supposed to be black) distracting from everything else.Sean A. Day, President, American Synesthesia Association