Adjectives describing "Adverbs"

In his new novel “Adverbs,�? Daniel Handler creates a series of intertwined Moebius strips upon which his characters crawl, jumping occasionally to others, hooking up with yet other characters and incidents (including a volcano destroying San Francisco). These vague connections don’t feel nearly as artfully managed as in David Mitchell’s brilliant “Cloud Atlas;�? they feel sort of clever for cleverness’ sake and not really necessary to piece together to appreciate what Handler’s going after here. The book is probably best enjoyed more as a series of short stories than as a coherent novel, but it is enjoyable nonetheless.

Handler is best known as Lemony Snicket, the gleefully malevolent author of the children’s books “A Series of Unfortunate Events.�? (Handler, coincidentally, writes in the current issue of the literary magazine The Believer about the “Buddha Machine,�? which I discussed here a couple of months ago.)

“Adverbs�? is a book about love and its discontents, about the difficulty of making connections, of maintaining those connections and of severing those connections.

Amongst my favorite chapters is “Clearly,�? about a tragedy – and a connection – in the wilderness; “Naturally,�? in which a woman hooks up with a dead guy because, in the end, when the relationship concludes, that’s pretty much what he’ll be in her mind anyway; and “Wrongly,�? which is about how most relationships end – and, of course, begin.

In “Naturally,�? the dead guy opts not to tell his new girlfriend that he’s dead: “Now was not the time to tell her. It never is, right when you meet someone, slap them with a big secret when they’re trying to enjoy themselves. It is natural to let the worst parts of ourselves hide in the shade, while the sun shines down on our features like shimmering hair.�? Naturally, it doesn’t end well, and Handler writes, “What good are the dead if they do not haunt us, what is the point of their lives? … What matters is how they haunt us, when the love has floated away and we’re alone in the diner.�?

The book jacket blurb’s hilarious, too.