A Pickle for the Knowing Ones - Timothy Dexter.

(A small note on this blog. Skip this paragraph for the review itself.) As I mentioned in the last series of book reviews I did, I had no clue what I was doing with these reviews. That is still true, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent than before. I have decided that it would be far easier for everybody (including myself) if I did these book reviews one at a time instead of dumping a month’s worth of reviews on you. Of course this will mean that each review will be much more detailed, which can’t be a bad thing. Either way, you may expect at least 1 book review per week in the future. And hopefully, I’ll be able to stick to that schedule. Hopefully.

Anywho, onto the review as before!

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This book is so bad that it’s good. Let’s just start there.

It’s either a (1/10) or a (10/10) depending on your inclination towards ironic humour. Personally, I think it’s both the greatest and the stupidest book ever written in the history of the English language, if you can call this text “English” in the first place. But, trust me when I say that this book is worth the read.

What do I mean by all this you ask? I think the only way for me to do justice to the contents of this book is by providing some context on the genius who wrote it: “Lord” Timothy Dexter. (You can skip this part too, but I would not recommend it)

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First off, don’t let the name throw you off. Trust me when I say that this absolute legend wasn’t some pompous British prick. (I was first introduced to this man through a hilarious Sam O'Nella video on YouTube, which you can find here if you are interested. I highly recommend it as the video itself is the pinnacle of internet comedy. Nevertheless, I will be repeating more or less the same facts here, so it's not a must. I’ll try and keep this short and fun as well.)

Born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1747, Timothy Dexter spent his early years as a farm hand and a tanner’s apprentice until he fell in love with and married an older widow who just so happened to be rich (very romantic of him, I know). It is from here on that we see the events that made him the absolute fucking legend that he was.

After saving up some money through his tanning business, Dexter decided to set up shop as a proper businessman, and one of his first moves was to buy a shit-ton of Continental currency (issued by the Continental Congress during the American revolutionary war) which had depreciated tremendously during the war. By all accounts, this currency was practically worthless. But by a stroke of sheer good fortune which would be repeated many times in his future ventures, the American government decided to make good on these notes at 1% of its value, while the state of Massachusetts, where he happened live, decided to pay these notes at face value, which meant that our boy Dexter was now sitting on a small fortune. And what did he do with this money, you ask? He started the stupidest and the luckiest export business that I have ever heard of.

In one instance, his rivals managed to convince him to export bed warmers, which were used to heat beds in winter, to the fucking West Indies. And guess what happened? Instead of flopping like a fish in a desert, his captain managed to sell these bed warmers as ladles for stirring molasses, turning a nice profit. In another instance, he was told to “carry coal to Newcastle”, which was an idiom for doing something pointless as Newcastle happened to be the UK’s leading producer of coal. Can you guess what happened this time? Either through meticulous planning, or through dumb luck (I’m not sure which), his ship arrived right in the middle of a miner’s strike and Dexter once more made a tidy profit selling off his coal. There are countless other instances like these in his business ventures, such as when he sent wool mittens to the West Indies again, only for these to be bought up by Asian merchants who were exporting goods to Siberia. And if you think all of this was weird, his life outside of business gets weirder yet.

Using his business profits, Dexter bought a huge mansion and commissioned 40 something statues of great men to be built in his garden as a public display of sorts (these statues are discussed a great deal in the book), including statues of Jefferson, Washington, Napoleon, and notably, 2 statues of himself. He also decided to title himself “Lord” Dexter in emulation of the European nobility, and he even hired himself a Poet Laureate who was none other than his old tanner’s apprentice, who also happened to be the town fishmonger and pornography dealer (and here I am wasting my poetry on this god-forsaken blog when I should just focus on finding some rich lunatic with an ego the size of Canada). My personal favourite story of him was the time he faked his own funeral, watched the ceremony from behind some bushes, and was then found beating his wife during the memorial dinner because she had not cried enough during the fake burial. And if all this wasn’t enough, he evidently though much of himself, calling himself ‘the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world.’

It is with all of this context in mind that we must approach his book, because only a man as great as this could have written a book of this nature.

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Now we come to the book itself (and my apologies if the part on Dexter was a little too long for your taste).

This book is in my opinion the greatest work of literary art ever made by human hands. I have often thought that good and bad are not a spectrum, but a circle, and that if something is terrible enough, it may go full circle and become great simply because of how bad it is. This is that thing.

In a nutshell, this book contains the deranged ramblings of a lunatic who believed himself to be the greatest gift god ever gave this green earth. He was a fun lunatic though, which was indeed a blessing to anybody lucky enough to read this. The book just randomly gives his thoughts on everything from politics and religion, to his family and his statue garden (which he discusses in great length for some ungodly reason). There’s even a part where he gives instructions on how to summon the devil himself! Or in his own words, “I will Let you know the sekret houe you may see the Devel…”. Of course, I won’t give the instructions here. You dipshits will have to read the book for that.

But that little quote brings us to the greatest part about this book. The spelling, or rather the lack thereof.

The whole book is written in gibberish spellings that he just makes up while writing. And as for the punctuation, there is none. Not a single full stop, comma, or apostrophe in the entire fucking book!

And for those of you wondering, no this wasn’t a conscious artistic choice like Joyce did with ‘Finnegans Wake’. The man simply couldn’t spell, and evidently, he didn’t care much for punctuation either. The whole book is just blocks of gibberish text split up into paragraphs and sections. But trust me though, despite the impression y0u may get, this just makes the book even funnier.

To prove my point, let me present to you my favourite quotes from the book.

“Ime the first Lord in the younited States of A mercary Now of Newburyport it is the voise of the peopel and I cant Help it and so let it goue”.

“What is a presedent answer A king bonne partey the grate has as much power as A king and ort to have & it is a massey… for grate ways back there must be A head sum whare or the peopel is Lost Lik wild gees when thay Lous the gander two Leged want A head if fore Leged both & 2 Leged fouls”.

(This next one is a paragraph in its entirety that I found too hilarious to not post)

“I say the grate mister Divel that has so maney Nick Names a frind to the preasts Now is dead all and the pope Likewise and the founders of mesonic A Cheat foull of war and gratness of hell Dead preasts Dead and Lawyers Damede Deade A braham b bi Ass Dead and All the frinds of mankind sings prasses that wee are the grat familey of mankind Now out of hell Deleured from fire and smoak bourning for Ever Now all in heaven uppon Earth Now all frinds Now for A Day of Regoising all over the world as one grate familey all Nasions to be ounited No more wars for fifty years and Longer I Recommend pease A Congress in france and when wee are Ripe for A Emper in this Contrey Call for me to take the helm or a Consler in the Afare of trouth Amen and Amen”.

If these aren’t the ramblings of a lunatic, then I don’t know what is. And if you think that this paragraph is delightfully annoying, try reading 20-something pages of this. And if the above paragraph is indicative of anything, it is Dexter’s ability to seamlessly drift from one random topic to the next; an ability that comes not from literary skill, but from the complete lack of a cohesive theme.

But we still haven’t come to the best part of this book. When critics (and just about everybody else) complained of the lack of punctuation in the book, he pulled what is probably the ballsiest move I have ever seen in publishing. Did he apologise like a wimp? Did he bend to their demands like a spineless worm and add punctuation? Did he just keep his head down and pretend not to have heard the criticism like any “decent” modern author would?

No, no, and no. Of course not. This is Timothy-fucking-Dexter we’re talking about. Instead, from the second edition onwards, this absolute Gigachad added an entire page of nothing but commas, semicolons, colons, question marks, exclamation marks, apostrophes, full stops, and hyphens at the back of the book with a note that said:

“fouder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A Nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they plese”.

What a legendary life he lived.

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While in many of my book reviews I focus on the book itself and only talk about the writer where needed, I can’t do that here. Even if we put aside the fact that the shortness of the book leaves one with little to talk about, we must also concede that this book is as much a part of Dexter as Dexter was a part of it. It is a curious extension of his eccentricities, and in my not-so-humble opinion, both the book and its author must be celebrated by any admirer of the strange and the absurd.

And so, like I said at the start, I’m personally leaning more towards the (10/10) than the other end of the spectrum and I couldn’t recommend this book enough. It’s short, it’s entertaining, and perhaps best of all, its too old for copyright claims and so you may read the free e-book here, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, who really are doing gods work for us bookwyrms. And if all of this isn’t enough to convince you to read it, then I’m afraid nothing will. But I can assure you that you will be missing out on a total comedic gem of a book.

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Anywho, that’s it for ‘A pickle for the Knowing Ones’. Stay weird, and I’ll hopefully catch you for the next book review as well. And now, let me leave you with this hilarious poem about Timothy Dexter written by his "gifted" poet laureate (this can be found in the book), which I can share here with a clean conscience thanks to the lack of copyrights. :)

“LORD DEXTER is a man of fame,

Most celebrated is his name;

More precious far than gold that's pure,

Lord Dexter live for evermore.

His noble house it shines more bright

Than Lebanon's most pleasant height,

Never was one who step'd therein

Who wanted to come out again.

His house is fill'd with sweet perfumes,

Rich furniture doth fill his rooms;

Inside and out it is adorn'd,

And on the top an eagle's form'd.

His house is white and trimm'd with green,

For many miles it may be seen;

It shines as bright as any star,

The fame of it has spread afar.

Lord Dexter, thou, whose name alone

Shines brighter than king George's throne;

Thy name shall stand in books of fame,

And Princes shall his name proclaim.

Lord Dexter hath a coach beside,

In pomp and splendor he doth ride;

The horses champ the silver bitt,

And throw the foam around their feet.

The images around him stand,

For they were made by his command;

Looking to see Lord Dexter come,

With fixed eyes they see him home.

Four lions stand to guard the door,

With their mouths open to devour

All enemies who do disturb

Lord Dexter or his shady grove.

Lord Dexter, like king Solomon,

Hath gold and silver by the ton,

And bells to churches he hath given,

To worship the great king of heaven.

His mighty deeds they are so great,

He's honor'd both by church and state,

And when he comes all must give way,

To let Lord Dexter bear the sway.

When Dexter dies all things shall droop,

Lord East, Lord West, Lord North shall stoop,

And then Lord South with pomp shall come,

And bear his body to the tomb.

His tomb most charming to behold,

A thousand sweets it doth unfold;

When Dexter dies shall willows weep,

And mourning friends shall fill the street.

May Washington immortal stand,

May Jefferson by God's command

Support the right of all mankind,

John Adams not a whit behind.

America with all your host,

Lord Dexter in a bumper toast;

May he enjoy his life in peace,

And when he's dead his name not cease.

In heaven may he always reign,

For there's no sorrow, sin, nor pain:

Unto the world I leave the rest,

For to pronounce Lord Dexter blest.”

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