Customer Reviews

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has received excellent reviews from many reviewers, who felt that the book helped them immensely with their own grammar; however, having studied language acquisition and linguistics, I have found myself wondering exactly who this book would best serve.

If you are looking for a book that will teach you to write well and grammatically, this is not your book. You will need a hard core and detailed grammar book for that. And if you're just a grammar nut and love reading about it (like I am), you're probably going to be bored to tears.

So who would this book be good for? Well, some of Gordon's grammatical explanations are quite original, so I would recommend this book for the classroom teacher of grammar who is looking for alternative phrasings of traditional rules. And for the motivated learner...

If you struggle with grammar, this book might be fun for you to read through, and will probably serve as an excellent introduction to grammar. Don't be deceived, though--neither this nor any book is going to teach you to write. You will learn to write by reading great authors and attempting to immitate their writing, and by seeking out an editor/teacher--someone who will read your writing and give you personalized tips. It is nearly impossible for even the best of writers to edit their own writing, and you shouldn't read this book thinking that it will solve your grammatical woes.

I think the greatest value this book has to offer is in its readability and ability to inspire (I hope). I recommend the book if you want an introduction to grammar, and I hope you will find yourself inspired to pursue further studies.

aryln@hotmail.com

I'm sorry, but I really did want this book to be great. The thoughts of an "alternative" grammar book got me salavating like crazy and I couldn't wait for my order to come through.

However, upon sitting down to read, I was instantly disappointed. First of all, the introduction/preface seems to be written only for those who are familiar with Ms. Gordons work or previous books, which kind of puts newcomers off kilter before even starting.

The margins are HUGE, and though the author encourages notetaking, I got the impression that there was a lot of stretching going on to make the book into a publishable size. The use of "unusual" characters is charming at first, but becomes distracting once you try and actually learn grammar. Also a lot of the sentences are repeated [ad nauseum], especially under the illustrations which seem to be the main focal point of the book rather than the grammar.

This book reminds me of a wolf in sheeps clothing. It's trying far too hard to be "hip" and "different" by latching onto Goth trends to sell. In the end, all your left with is a clunky book of an irregular size that is more for display than actual education.

Get it if you're into Goth type bells and whistles, pass if you're looking to actually learn something.

- A.

I am surprised at the negativity of some of these reviews (also of the author's other book! I think some people take grammar too seriously--it is not a religion.) This book is hysterically funny as well as being factual, but i guess it is not everyone's cup o'tea, so to speak. It does offer decent grammar instruction. The examples are random and bizarre but this is no liability, in my opinion. The stranger and more creative a sentence, the more I pay attention to it. Being an English teacher of gifted children, I can tell you that if I use bizarre and amusing grammar examples, students pay attention. Although I do not use concubines and gargoyles in my grammar lessons, I am inspired to be a little more creative when providing examples for my students. I think this book can help one to write well in many ways--it helps prove that grammar can be creative and interesting. It also helps to connect grammar to actual writing in that it is extremely creative and suggests a story or a plot. It also is a welcome relief from the "drill and kill" method taught when I was a student--that did not help me one bit. I wouldn't use this book to teach my kids, but I do prefer to reference it when I am checking something--it puts a smile on my face and puts me in a good mood. When tackling something as inherently boring and conservative as grammar, that is a plus!

Gordon again gives us a whimsical tour of the English language. A familiar cast of characters featuring baby vampires and chimera abound throughout the pages to demonstrate the parts of speech and sentence structure.

Although this book will work as a review or a teaching tool, the vocabulary may dissuade the beginner from reading it. For instance, what exactly is a chimera or a samovar? If you don't know, you can still learn from the book, but you will not get the humor. I would read a sample before purchasing.

One of the nice touches this book has is the inclusion of margins. The author invites you to make notes and comments to help enhance the experience. This is very helpful.

I would recommend this book more as a review than as a beginner's book. The format is not conducive to quick reference. It is a fun and educational read.

In an essay from her collection Mama Makes Up Her Mind, Bailey White describes how she learned to get children to read. Teach them that they can find out really nasty, tragic things from books. Because despite what adults would like to believe, kids love that stuff. How else to explain the publishing phenomena of Goosebumps and Lemony Snicket.

Karen Gordon seems to be using a similar tactic on the teaching of sentence structure with her book, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. (Now, that's a title.)

In her introduction, Gordon states that she knows what "a dangerous game I'm playing" by illustrating the rules of grammar via "a menage of revolving lunatics kidnapped into this book." However, she persuades that by following their stories, we will "be beguiled into compliance with the rules, however confounding those rules may appear to be." She's right. This is absolutely the most fun I've had reading a grammar primer. The rules are written simply enough; this book's charm lies in its illustrative sentences--wonderful, gothic examples of subject and predicate, adjective and adverb, dependent and independent clauses. Sentences giving examples of a subject include:

The persona non grata was rebuked.
His huge, calm, intelligent hands wrestled with her confusion of lace.

She goes on to give examples of nouns: Person (eavesdropper, ruffian, Peter Lorre), Place (Aix-en-Provence, Omsk, Mars), and Thing (marzipan, scum, haunch); as well participles and gerunds. This is a thorough look at all the rules necessary for proper communication. The examples make for curious reading, and when the sentences are captioning the numerous classical paintings and woodcuts scattered throughout, often provoke a laugh.
Such as the simple picture of a lady's hand, with the legend "The hand that is languishing on the windowsill once was mine" (restrictive adjective clause); or the painting of the nude which illustrates the separation of independent clauses with a semi-colon and reads, "She wrapped herself up in an enigma; there was no other way to keep warm."

We need to know how to use this language we have, and use it well. And while we're relearning the proper usages, why not have fun doing it? Karen Gordon thinks we should. As the final sentence in the book states: "You must beckon the transitive vampire to your bedside and submit to his kisses thirstily."

Now that's a well-constructed sentence.

Definitely the most entertaining this subject can possibly be. The author is obviously very smart and i admire her to write something like this. koodos to you, koodos

Fans of Anne Rice should love this! A grammer book you can read, and read, and read just for fun. You will learn and enjoy all at once. A must for school and college students students that need extra help. A absolute must for writers.

It's a rare quality that a textbook - for that is, essentially, what Karen Elizabeth Gordon's "Deluxe Transitive Vampire" is - can actually entertain the reader as well. It's even more rare to find a book that actually makes something as dull and obtuse as English Grammar seem interesting and - dare I say it - fun?

I was introduced to this book as part of a college-level grammar class that I'd been putting off until my senior year. Although I fancy myself a decent writer, I couldn't tell anyone what a gerund was, or how to diagram a sentence, to save my life. I knew the rules of grammar intuitively, but I just didn't know what they were called. I'd be lying if I said this book taught me, but it certainly set me on the right path, and took away a good deal of the dread of looking such things up.

Illustrated liberally with a spattering of Victorian-style Gothic imagery, and incorporating semi-stories about vampires, debutantes, trolls, and tea parties, the Deluxe Transitive Vampire is a great guide to grammar, from the simplest rules about nouns and verbs to the most abtract, outlandish little "English-isms" in our language. It's a pleasure to browse through, and when you have to turn to it, it never fails to bring a chuckle (or a shudder).

Deluxe Transitive Vampire belongs on any writer's shelf, between the Stunk and White and the Thesaurus.

A book that describes verbs as the heartthrobs of sentences can't be all bad. With vivid imagery in grammatical examples and exhortations, one can effortlessly gobble up this book before you know it, licking your lips with verbal blood. Gordon is =thorough=, naming grammatical entities I never knew even had names (often very suggestive names, too - expletive nouns and copulative verbs. I suppose Mom was right - there =are= naughty words!)

However, I would suggest this as a start to investigating grammar and writing style. Gordon's explanations are truly bare bones; for example, she simply indicates one will be chastised for splitting infinitives, but doesn't indicate =why= splitting infinitives is seen as wrong. The reason why: 17th and 18th century grammarians decided that English grammar should be logical. Since the most logical language they knew was formal Latin, and since one couldn't split infinitives in Latin (because they are one word in that language), they decided that one shouldn't be able to split infinitives in English, either. However, "to go boldly" has a whimper of an impact compared to "to boldly go". Similarly, grammarians did away with double negatives and duplicated superlatives (native to the English language, back to the Old English) for added emphasis. Why don't =you= tell the Rolling Stones they should've sang "I Can't Get Any Satisfaction", and then you can tell Shakespeare to cut out "most" of "the most unkindest cut of all".

However, you can't go wrong with the grammatical and stylistic rules found in Gordon's Gothic grammar; it's a great place to begin, and one is entertained in the process. If one doesn't know how to work within those rules, one can't tell when it is legitimate to break them. So why don't you boldly go and get satisfaction from this book?

Most grammar books are about as entertaining as reading all the text -- including footnotes -- in a sixteen-volume introduction to the history of the shower curtain. Miss Gordon does for grammar what Alfred Hitchcock did for taking showers in cheesy hotels. Advanced students (test: define subjective complement) won't need this, but might like to read it simply because it is so much fun! For beginners, I can't imagine a better basic text. Buy it. You'll feel like Janet Leigh staying with the Bates.