Genre-Queer, Fiction and Poetry Review
Candace Fertile
The Rude Story of English
by Tom Howell,
Toronto: ON: MClelland &Stewart
320 pp. $22.95
That Tom Howell loves language and wordplay is obvious for his romp through the history of English in The Rude Story of English, a light-hearted imagining of the language’s past (and possible future). Howell hasn’t met a pun he doesn’t like, and he has no fear of the roughest edges of the language, so the book is a zany amalgam of history and fiction written in a chatty, familiar voice.
Howell worked on the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Oxford Thesaurus, among other language related tasks before embarking on this book, and his knowledge shows as much as his sense of humour. He argues that the story of English lacks a hero, so with the help of history and J.R.R. Tolkien, he creates one named Hengest, who moves through time appearing and disappearing along with his twin brother, Horsey, and sister-daughter, Horsehair.
The book has four parts: “The Hero,” in which Hengest is developed; “Rise of the Poets,” in which early poetry is explored (including a chapter called “More Cock Jokes, 885 AD”); The “Tongue That Ate Itself,” in which English becomes recognizable, in part through the development of “guidebooks” for pilgrims and the church’s marketing strategies; and “Company,” in which English spreads around the world as England becomes the major colonising force.
The book is a collection of anecdotes, poems, lists, illustrations by Gabe Foreman, and no-holds barred attitude which often dwells on the sexual. Howell uses plenty of parenthetical asides in his whimsical gallop through English, and honestly, I had a hard time figuring out what the hell was going on.
Ultimately I had an even harder time trying to figure out who the audience is. You need a strong background in English language, literature, and history to get many of the jokes (except for the penis ones as they tend to be universal). And even then it’s confusing because of the blend of fact and fiction. But Howell has a fast and twitchy mind and loads of information, both of the distant past and of current popular culture. And his dedication to creating a hero and developing the rude aspect of the story is appealing even if the story is necessarily fragmented and the language is brash.
I so enjoyed reading the stories in Bombay Wali. Every story was uniquely presented to evoke a sense of nostalgia and empathy for the characters.
Look forward to more publications from Guernica.