2007-10-18 Much Funnier than Portuguese Irregular Verbs

No one should read this book thinking it's part of the Botswana books. I also recommend that you read Portuguese Irregular Verbs first. Without that background, the humor here won't work as well.

Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (as in "hedge hog field") is a very self-important expert on Portuguese irregular verbs at the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany. We learned in the prior book that he's also a bit insecure about his position within this field. At the end of that book, we discovered that he also harbors a disdain for dachshunds ("sausage dogs") as being insufficiently noble (he is a "von" after all). This dislike only reinforces his low opinion of his colleague, Unterholzer, who owns such a creature.

As this book opens, the good professor finds himself feeling out of sorts because his colleague and friend, Professor Doctor Doctor Florianus Prinzel, will be making a lecture in the United States before von Igelfeld. Such a blow to his pride is unsupportable, and our professor takes some short cuts to regain precedence in this arena. That decision leads to some unexpected opportunities to meet new people that may leave you laughing aloud as I was did when I read the first story.

The second story builds on that humor nicely as the professor receives his American host for a visit to Regensburg. There is a slapstick sequence in this story that had me howling on the floor.

The humor levels of the final three stories are lower and take more time to develop, but they are excellent character studies about how someone who has a superiority complex deals with the mundane bumps in the road.

In On the Couch, our professor deals with a feud between Unterholzer and him . . . while trying to maintain his commitment to truth.

The Bones of Father Christmas is a lengthy story with a delayed punch line that takes the professor back to Italy for an extended visit that puts him in the middle of a Christian controversy that has an unexpected conclusion.

The Perfect Imperfect explores how philology becomes a popular subject aboard a cruise ship when our professor takes over.

Don't take these stories too literally. They are very exaggerated . . . almost like cartoons in their humor. If you don't like such broad humor, avoid this book . . . especially if you are a dachshund lover.

I could see this book, however, being made into a pretty hilarious movie starring Steve Martin.