For a man who once had an uncredited role as a bartender in "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo", Norm Macdonald is a shockingly gifted wordsmith. This is one of the rare books where the language has stayed with me weeks later. The antiquated phrases made me laugh, but it was also very poetic at times!

I keep hearing the words of the old swiler in my head, as he described seal hunting to the young boy: "The baby harp, she has a skull as thin as a shadow".

Other random phrases and word clusters that are still rattling around in my head:

-"And the three of us were silent in the witness of this wicked miracle."

-"Drunk as a boiled owl".

-I still have no idea what the hell Norm means by "a pickler's fortnight", but I'm determined to use the phrase in my everyday life.

Sure, the book is extremely uneven, evasive and ultimately doesn't amount to much, but some of the passages in the book took my breath away with their originality. It read at times like if Dostoevsky or Nabokov grew up in rural, depression era Canada and did a lot of morphine.I would not recommend this book to almost anyone I know, but it was quite a ride.