
Eunoia
Christian Bok(Author)
Canongate Books (Publisher)
Published on 17. September 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-1-84767-244-5 (ISBN)
Description
'Eunoia', which means 'beautiful thinking', is the shortest English word to contain all five vowels. This book also contains them all, except that each one appears by itself in its own chapter. A unique personality for each vowel soon emerges: A is courtly, E is elegiac, I is lyrical, O is jocular, U is obscene. A triumphant feat, seven years in the making, Eunoia is as playful as it is awe-inspiring.
Reviews / Votes
Christian Bok's dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year. * * The Times * * Extraordinary, outrageous, irresistible - a must for verbivores. -- Gyles Brandreth A book that is easy, and pleasurable, to read. Eunoia is characterized not by obvious sweat and strain, but by playfulness, fluidity and self-conscious wit . . . At other times, the rhythms bounce and tumble, creating an impression of haste despite the meticulousness and graft of the book's composition . . .The book's freshest insights pertain to the resilience and manipulability of language. * * Irish Times * * No mere Christmas stocking filler for Countdown fans. Rather, it's an ingenious little novel . . . playful and irreverent . . . charming. * * Metro * * Amazing . . . impressive . . . It's beautiful, it's funny and it's moving. * * Globe and Mail * * Brilliant . . . beautiful and strange. * * Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 Interview * * This writing is brill nihilism.. this little book is an extraordinary exercise in crooked spelling. -- Philip Howard * * Guardian * * Rhyme and repetition create an intoxicating array of images and allusion . . . The close attention to sentence construction creates a refreshing poetry, where the manipulation of single letters is used to elicit startling beauty. Bok has produced an ode to the alphabet, where the power of vowels, verbs and alliteration is inspiring. -- Nathan Dunne * * Daily Telegraph * *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
84 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84767-244-5 (9781847672445)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Christian Boek is the author of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), a pataphysical encyclopaedia nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award for Best Poetic Debut. Boek has created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry's Earth Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon. Boek has also earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry (particularly the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks (which include books built out of Rubik cubes and Lego bricks) have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. He lives in Toronto.