Home > Media > Books > Karen Elizabeth Gordon - The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Karen Elizabeth Gordon - The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Freak369's Full Review: Karen Elizabeth Gordon - The Deluxe Transitive Vam...
Every so often I get books that arrive with postmarks from foreign countries. My friends do a good bit of traveling and I always have little flags on the wall map to mark where they are. This one can postmarked from a small town in Finland; checking the map no one was anywhere near this town so I am still wondering who my book fairy is. On the off chance that he or she reads this, thank you for the book but please, let me know who you are so I can thank you properly. Now, when it arrived it was wrapped in heavy brown paper in several layers. Gingerly I unwrapped it knowing full and well that it was a book of some sort. When I saw the title of it I made a very common mistake and thought that it was about transvestite vampires - that’s what happens when you read the title too quick. The complete title is “The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar For The Innocent, The Eager And The Doomed”. That is certainly a mouthful to say in a single breath but if you are into strange and intrinsic books, you’ll want to memorize the title and ask for it by name when you go to the bookstore or library.
“The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar For The Innocent, The Eager And The Doomed”
I’ve read the book from cover to cover several times and I’m still puzzled by it. Not that I can’t understand what is written or the content goes over my head - just that it’s something that is hard to classify. In some ways it is poetry, in others it’s advanced grammar with a gothic twist. When you look at the content page and see things like ‘sentences’, ‘pronouns’, ‘verbs’ and ‘clauses’ you think that this is some type of old world English book designed to give you a little polish on your education. That all changes when you start reading the book and passages. But before you get to that you have to mull through more than a few pages or acknowledgments, a preface and then the introduction. The book does start off with basic things like sentences and subjects; but I will be honest - even on the first page you may hit some stumbling blocks if English wasn’t your strongest subject. You get complete and simple subjects thrown at you after the first block of sentences. My best advice about this book is to read it for pleasure, not to actually ‘learn’ something from it. If you sit there and try to remember each and every thing that it is covering you will miss the beauty of what is being written. A very small part of me thinks that the passages were written first then the streamlined and staunch instructive pieces were added. Sort of like the author was a little too fearful of having just the poetic fragment sitting there bare for anyone to scrutinize.
After the first page you get a taste of the true meaning of the book - gothic writing. It happens slowly but by the time you get to the last handful of pages you are inundated with sentences like these doozies in the ‘absolute phrases’ section.
The wine having been poisoned, he convulsed
The truth having slipped out, she winked.
The sandman’s footfalls still freshly retreating, an apparition presents itself.
Things having proceeded as planned, the rats were rubbing their paws on wine lapels and looking very smug.
While some of those sentences may not make any sense, when you are reading the book - it all comes together. In some ways it is like you are reading a book within a book; following the characters through a wordy dance that definitely grooves to a different beat. It’s extremely hard to write a review of this book because I have two different views of it. My creative side is drawn to the illustrations and verbose sentence structure while the brainy side digs deep into all the different type of grammar. Most of the things that the book delves into when it comes to grammar are areas that you will probably never have a use for - but that doesn’t mean that you won’t learn anything from it. Hell, the shock value of it alone is enough to warrant buying it and having it on the coffee table on in a home library. Most people glance at the title and think it is something that is highly sexual - it’s transitive [meaning transitory], not transvestite [meaning crossdressing].
The baby vampire hurled his bottle at his nanny and screamed for type O instead.
That sentence has no real meaning when taken out of context but when discussing prepositions in the early part of the book [page 22 to be exact], you get a good gothic primer of what a preposition really is. [I’ll admit it, I thought it was cool as hell] By using elaborate and grandiose words, the topics being covered are ingrained in such a way that it is hard to forget them. If my English classes were versed in such a way, chances are I would have a much better grasp of grammar and wouldn’t sound like a bumbling idiot when I am writing. Even though the book does step out on the gothic ledge to get its point across, it does have general reference sections that encapsulates the grammatical examples. It’s this type of balance that makes this an educational type of book yet very entertaining at the same time. Well, entertaining may be a stretch if you aren’t into this type of writing.
Some of the things that are covered in the book include more pronouns that I ever knew existed. Personal, indefinite, relative demonstrative, reciprocal, reflexive, intensive, expletive .. all pronouns. But wait, it gets better, some of these have subsections to contend with. Each of the main sections are structured like this but don’t worry, there is a recap at the end of each section before you move on to the next. There aren’t any exercises to do so you’ll have to read over parts that may trip you up. Now, I have studied English and parts of grammar in the past but I was never aware of some of the things that are covered in the book; if you are someone that gets into this type of reading then consider this a must have tome. I tell you, after reading this book I am seriously thinking about digging out the homeschooling English books and starting over from scratch - it seems like everything I thought I knew about grammar is wrong or at the very least, partially wrong.
Just like an infomercial that never seems to end, I’ll drone on about other interesting things you will be exposed to; pronoun-verb agreement {I can’t even begin to explain this one], gerunds [the -ing form of a verb], transitive verbs [verbs that can’t complete their meaning without the help of a direct object], compound prepositions [prepositions made up of more than one word], abstract nouns [they have a quality or idea behind them] and the compliment of a verb. That doesn’t mean that it is polite or courteous, no, it can be a word that adds accent to a verb and can be of direct objects, indirect objects, subjective or objective compliments. Yeah, that sounds really impressive doesn’t it? I’d like to say that I understand what that all means but I don’t - at least I am being honest about it. If it has anything to do with grammar, chances are it will be mentioned in the book. To save you time there is a reference and index section at the back of the book. I’m lingering on the ‘comma splices and run-ons’ right now ... I will never have a use for this but damn, I am determined to get it.
Ahhhhhh, The Art
OK, so we’ve covered the grammar and the verbosity of the book, now let’s get down to the illustrations. If you are someone that is into gothic art, getting the book for just that purpose might be enough to justify the purchase. There are some that are very basic and crude and others that will certainly have you mystified. I have some favorites - page 161 has a drawing of a naked female with the caption under it, “She wrapped herself up in an enigma, there was no other way to keep warm” All of these sentences that appear with drawings work well together. If you flip to page 143 you’ll see a large bear holding the hand of a woman, “If this is love, I’ve made a terrible mistake” as I said, when you take these passages and sentences out of context they don’t make sense but when they are presented in the book, it lets you take a little break from the educational side of things. You’ll find all types of gothic delights like skeletons, black cats, cherubs, moons, bats, gargoyles, monsters and a plethora of other images.
The Bottom Line
I’ve read a lot of books over the years but this one is by far the one that I have spent the most time re-reading and trying to truly understand. Even though it’s only 175 pages long, it is something that I have spent more than three months reading off and on. Please, don’t let that scare you away from checking this out or reading it, it doesn’t have to be this complex but I really want to understand it as much as possible. You don’t have to have a college degree to read this and get enjoyment from it, most people will read it and come away from it with pleasure from the passages, sentences and characters. I wish I wasn’t so anal retentive and OCD about trying to master all the parts of grammar that the book covers. I’m sure that if I just relaxed about it and overlooked the lessons to be learned, the educational parts might come easier. This is a book that hasn’t made it on to my shelf .. it’s always on the coffee table in the livingroom and depending on my mood it could be read for a chuckle or two, to look at the drawings or when I am dead set on learning about the complex side of English grammar.
On a side note, if you are someone that gets into learning new words, this book is full of them ... and there are more off the wall saying and quotes that you could ever image a ‘grammar’ book having. It’s hard for me to say that this is an educational book without adding that it has a lot of art - both visual and verbal - in it. Suffice it to say that it is something that you just have to sit down and read in order to grasp the total spectrum of it. While a majority of the books I read are vampire fiction or horror novels, this is something that has piqued my curiosity and been a constant source of entertainment for me.
Here now is an enlarged version of the only handbook of grammar you will ever want to read. With this special edition, Karen Gordon gives the reader m...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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