A reading recommendation: Russell Hoban's The Hungry Three series (and also some accidental spicy werewolf romance novel plans, but that's on me, not Russell)

My friend Lars likes to use the phrase, "Garbage in, garbage out."

He's usually talking about data reports, but I believe that it also applies to artistic endeavors. By which I mean:

READ DUMB CRAP = WRITE DUMB CRAP.

(This is, I believe, why niche genres so quickly become a race to the bottom as each generation is written by people who have only read the previous generation until the dialogue of our domineering-but-emotionally-vulnerable-CEO-mobster-werewolf-in-gray-sweatpants love interest becomes so thin that you could shave with it*, but I digress.)
*See Chapter 47: He Reached for His $57 Bergemot-scented Shaving Cream with Taloned Hands, and I Melted

Anyways, today, we are going to talk about reading good crap. Specifically, we're going to talk about reading critically underrated Anglo-American author Russell Hoban's literary masterworks.

Most people (that is, 3 out of the 5 who know what I'm talking about) associate Russell Hoban with his (also quite good) psychedelic, post-apocalyptic madhouse novel Ridley Walker. Others may think of the (admittedly delightful) Frances the Badger books.

THEY ARE ALL UNCULTURED PHILISTINES.

The truly literary minded among us (that is, myself and the barbarian sock monkey who validates all of my opinions whilst guarding my office shelf from would-be Lego thieves), understand that Russell Hoban's true masterwork is the quadrilogy known, amongst our elite and enlightened circle, as THE HUNGRY THREE.

(It doesn't hurt that they are illustrated by fellow master-of-his-craft Colin McNaughton, whose scruffy, crosshatched watercolor pirates and monsters permanently set my artistic taste.*)

*Other irreversible seminal influences** are Trina Schart Hyman's fairytales, Howard Pyle, Lego, Windwaker, Majesty, and (somehow) Worms: Armageddon.
**See Chapter 72: The **** ***** ************'s *** **** ********ed the Asparagus, and I Shattered

Anyways, I could talk about the insane fusion of golden age illustration and toy-line commercial art all day, but we came here to talk about Russell Hoban.

Simply put, he wrote the greatest opening page of any story told to any audience in this or any other world.

Behold, the first paragraph of The Great Gumdrop Robbery:

There was a deep-sea diver.
He was diving, diving, swimming, swimming far down deep. He was finding golden treasure, secret caverns. He was swimming where the great white shark was gliding, where the giant clam was waiting, where the kraken groaned and slobbered. He was swimming where the crusted sunken galleons and the waiving-weeded bones of dead men lay.

Now say it out loud (as every children's book is first experienced).

Do it again.*
*See Chapter 37: I Just Wanted to Hear the Sound of Your Voice, He Said, Hacking up a Hairball,** and I Trembled
**See Chapter 28: He's a Werecat Now, and I Tremored in a Possibly Medical Way

Something insane happens when you write to be read out loud. I think, as we hammer away on our word processors, that we sometimes forget that stories are something to be said. We spoke and listened for thousands of years before we ever dreamed of writing and reading.

When we say our stories out loud, we are engaging senses that are more tuned to narrative than our eyes alone will ever be.

Just take a look at how expertly this paragraph uses repetition. Heck, let's just look at that middle line:

He was swimming where the great white shark was gliding, where the giant clam was waiting, where the kraken groaned and slobbered.

How many patterns are we building and breaking here?

3 things are mentioned: the great white shark, the giant clam, the kraken. Isn't it interesting how the names get shorter, but the creatures get bigger each time? 3 words, 2 words, 1 word: kraken. Look at those verbs: was gliding, was waiting, groaned and slobbered. 'Tis a classic rule-of-three pattern breaking on multiple fronts. (3 being the smallest number with which you can establish a pattern and then subvert it. Pay attention to fairytales sometime.) Not only does the kraken break the pattern established by getting 2 verbs instead of one, but he also jumps to a full past tense – none of this helping verb nonsense for the mighty kraken! The great white shark was gliding, the giant clam was waiting, but the kraken groaned and slobbered. Full stop.

Seriously, I could say this paragraph out loud every day of my life and never get tired of it.*
*Yes, I am seeking professional help.

Anyways, the books are a little difficult to get a hold of these days, having been out of print since the 80s, but they are generally available on eBay or (heaven help me) Amazon for sometimes not exorbitant prices. If you have children, you owe it to them.

(Full disclosure, I did once knock a tooth out being the Squidgerino Squelcher from The Flight of Bembel Rudzuk, but, what's a few teeth compared to the frontal lobe that Tik-Tok* is currently removing from your child?)
*Why is this the name of an obnoxious phone application and not a vengeful chaos god with an insatiable hunger for human souls? ...Oh wait.

(Plus, it wasn't all the way out, just kind of at a 45° angle*. My mom pushed it back in.**)
*See Chapter 86: ************** ************ ***** out ************ 45° ******* with *********, and I Swooned
**It's what the dentist said to do.***
***See Chapter 102: The Joke Will Get Old When I Say It Gets Old, He Growled, and I Convulsed with a Cerebral Hemorrhage of Ecstasy

In conclusion, Kragnar finds your surface reading of Much Ado About Nothing to be sophomoric at best.

PS: To the Pamela who checked out Russell Hoban's The Flight of Bembel Rudzuk from the Library of Our Savior's Lutheran Church School in 1992, I would just like to say that you have impeccable taste, and I hope that the last 33 years have been a continuous delight.

Also, I think your book might be overdue.