constraints can release creativity just as much as they can inhibit it -- rhyming poetry is a perfect example. granted, these particular constraints are rather extreme, but the general point stands.

also, of course you wouldn't derive the same kind of pleasure from reading this book as from reading a normal novel. but so what? if you can't see the beauty in this, turn in your geek badge at the door.

I don't know, I found the prose excerpt charming in a gimmicky way. But it is a pure stunt, and reading a whole book of it would probably be like watching somebody juggle chainsaws for hour after hour. (I just tried, and I can't even do one sentence of it.)

He is fantastic at bringing the music of the language to life-- rather than a focus on the meaning, the noise of the words is the focus.

And yes, I'm a language geek.

The tone has to be forced to perform a feat like that, like when people with no vocabulary try to write rhyming poetry, except this author must have read the thesaurus.