Customer Reviews

That Is All

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I didn't know much about John Hodgeman before picking up this book randomly in Chapters the other day, but after reading 'That Is All' I immediately ran out to get his other two. It was smart, crazy and absolutely hilarious. I actually had two different people come up to me on the subway and ask me what I was reading because I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud. This is exactly my humour, and may not be for everyone, especially uneducated idiots, but if you have a good sense of humour and understand satire then this book is perfect! I recommend starting with the first book 'The Areas of my Expertise' first though and then working your way to 'That Is All' instead of doing it backwards like me :)

Hodgman's third and final book in his trilogy of fake trivia leaves you with a sense of amazement. At first, it seems insane that anyone would publish not just one but three books of fake trivia, and just as insane that anyone would write them. Even more surprising that all three would be really good - hilarious, poignant and the last is the best of all. The books don't just stand up to repeated reading, they demand it.

In THAT IS ALL, Hodgman pulls together the disparate, seemingly random threads from the first two into a more cohesive whole that is hilarious, touching and poignant. The comparison that leaps to mind, of all things, is Tolkien's "The Return of the King."

Like his fellow Daily Show alumnus Stephen Colbert, Hodgman has created an alter ego of himself, with the same name. The genius of his voice is that he by posing as a fake expert in everything, he has created a character who can be superior and erudite while disarming people who hate intellectuals - and they are legion. He makes fun of smarty-pants elitist braniacs by being one, and in this subversive way he can mock expertise while delivering it and making it palatable. No. Small. Trick. Especially if you are sustaining it over three books.

Hodgman's many gifts include not just quickness, a gift for the insane and absurd, but the insight that ephemera and trivia are important, at least as a metaphor for us, and for our lives - fleeting and small in the grand scheme of things and all the more precious and tender as a result.

You can't blame Hodgman for trying to have his own original brand of humor, and there are some amusing bits in there, but after one has read The Areas of my Expertise and More Information than You Require, this new installment starts to wear a bit thin. Or perhaps i'm not quite insane enough to fully enjoy it.

There is really no need for anything else to be said. Brilliant. I am a huge fan of the first 2 books, but That Is All is the strongest of the 3. The material is a little more centrally themed (a lot of ties back to Ragnarok run throughout) and it reads a little more straightforwardly than the other 2 books. It really feels like a culminating effort, like the first 2 books were subtley leading to this. I don't know if that was Hodgman's original intention or if That Is All has been retrofitted to feel like that, but it's amazing. Of course there is the typical brilliance you've come to expect from this series, but I found a much higher frequency of laugh-out-loud-isms in this one. The other 2 also had laugh out loud moments, but this one really feels like Hodgman took the best ideas from the previous books (not that he took material from the other books, but thematically, i.e. his tables and charts and the flow of the book are stronger than ever), processed it through that uniquely and wonderfully strange brain of his, and then really went in for the kill. Even the back of the book jacket itself made me laugh out loud, with the picture of Hodgman in character as the deranged millionaire with the ferret skeleton (check out this link if you haven't yet [...]) and the single quote from Neil Gaiman, just perfect. Fantastic stuff, and highly, highly recommended!