The Portable Veblen

Some of the things in this book were just so out of left field that they were funny but overall it just felt like it was longer than it needed to be.

It began with a word and a quote.

Seropurulent \ ˌsir-ō-ˈpyu̇r-ə-lənt“He...wanted to sputter Seropurulent! which had been an ironic superlative they used in med school for terrible things that had to be overlooked.”From The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie.

I was browsing through some blog post drafts and I ran across this. The Portable Veblen? I had no memory of reading it. I double-checked Goodreads. No, nothing. But, I quickly learned, The Portable Veblen was on the National Book Awards longlist, and it was available at my public library. And there was a squirrel on the cover. Sold.

This is exactly (EXACTLY!) the sort of book I love. It's about nothing, and it's about everything. The characters are completely flawed and imminently loveable. The conversations are Alice-in-Wonderland-ish-ly strange and brilliant. The format of the story is conventional and yet also mildly surprising. It's humorous, too. And there are squirrel characters.

Let me share a little of the plot.

Veblen (yes, that's a name) is (kind-of) planning to marry Paul, and they are crazy about each other. The chief thing they have in common is that they both come from wildly disfunctional families. Paul has fallen into a fabulous job with a pharmaceutical firm after he has developed a Pneumatic Turbo Skull Punch to treat battlefield head trauma, while Veblen never finished college (should she tell Paul?) and does temp work and has conversations with squirrels.

Okay, I think that's enough.

I'm desperate now to read more by Elizabeth Mckenzie, and it seems she has a small backlist, so off I go.

Things I liked about this book: there's wordplay and fun with language; it never gets too cutesy, despite all the squirrels and quirky characters; it doesn't take place in Brooklyn.

This novel can be described with the following list of very interesting adjectives: quirky, ironic, karmic, squirrelly, political, joyful, maddening, hilarious, emotional, awkward, and even Pynchonesque at times.

Is your interest piqued? It should be!

I had a good time reading The Portable Veblen. It's bursting with themes that exercised the English major muscles in my brain! There are so many dysfunctional relationships, a hilarious and thought-provoking commentary on marketing and big business and corruption, and an exploration of mental health, all told by a confused but quirky and hilarious narrator named Veblen, who has a love for the environment and a penchant for talking to her squirrel friend.

Let me try to put this story into a nutshell for you (pun intended). Veblen is a 30-ish woman with a love for typing, squirrels, fixing up her cottage, and translating Norwegian. The story begins with a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Paul. Her thoughts and reaction to the proposal tips you off to the fact that this will not be an ordinary book about an ordinary love story. Especially when there's a squirrel involved.

Read my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/03/review-the-portable-veblen-by-elizabeth-mckenzie/

A unique book that might not be to everyone's taste. The heroine, Veblen, likes to talk to squirrels and eschews most trappings of the modern consumerist society. When her boyfriend Paul proposes after a few months of dating, she thinks she has found her perfect soul mate, as well as a family of in-laws that will offer her the warmth that her own narcissistic, hypochondriacal mother never provided. Paul loves Veblen, but his lifetime goal is to become a successful medical researcher who can afford a fancy home and a boat, to compensate for the childhood he spent on a commune with his loving neo-hippy parents. True love is great, but when it's followed by harrowing meetings with your in-laws-to-be, and the growing realization that you and your fiance have contrasting values ( not to mention opposing views on the merits of squirrels), a happy ending is not a sure thing.

Any book that covers family dynamics, war veteran PTSD, obscure economists, evil pharmaceutical executives and of course more information than you need to know about squirrels (including how to say the word in 65 different languages) is going to register as something you don't encounter every day. I could quibble that Veblen's mother is so godawful that she crosses the line into a cartoon villain, and that Veblen's quirks don't really add up to a full personality, but that didn't stop me from inhaling this 400 page book in less than 24 hours. It's funny, sad, sweet, thought-provoking and ultimately hopeful.