Review by Mack Hassler
One of my great literary heroes is Samuel Johnson, “…the style of a man who thinks with rigorous clarity and as the author of a dictionary has the whole language at his command.” (from the Preface to Johnson’s The History of Ressalas by Michael Lewis, professor of English. University of Kent ay Canterbury. Pp 11-12) Therefore, I think Heywood may be seen as a universally wise author. But first I must say more about the great Johnson. In his other important work of non-fiction notions that he published in the final decade of his life, The Preface to Shakespeare (1773) Johnson opened with the key generalization in these sorts of book making, Johnson. In fact, with his editing and reference book work was very important for the 19th-century interpretations and the staging of Shakespeare as it effected the theater and the Opera even into modern times. His phrase in the Preface was “first get general principles. I think the people making the books with their editing and the publishing of reference books are important Heywood seems to agree, except that he is nearly the reverse of old Dr. Johnson Rather than “Prefaces” and “Forewords” and “Introductions” he is more skeptical and a trickster and ironist. But he does seem to have read everything that he glosses Johnson had to pay readers to work endless hours reading books and newsprint in the third-floor attic within sight of the huge Dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in central London. I have been in the house and looked over at the Dome of Saint Paul’s. A small room filled with books. It was arduous work. Heywood has modern electronics. He can work more on his jokes and slapstick, And he is a Yooper with a long tradition of laughing about the UP. He is also plainly Obstreperous.
Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784)
So his version of a Lexicon is very amusing sounds very ornery. This is, in fact, in Limpy’s Adult Lexicon: Raw, Politically Incorrect, Improper & Unexpurgated, As Overheard & Noodled is his general principle. Another part of Heywoods disruptiveness is that, even though his Lexicon contains many word lists and his crazy definitions of the words, I can find no list where the alphabet contains the word “noodle” or “noodled,” I assume it means his wild speculative and free-wheeling imaginative definitions. But he refuses to pin it down for us. Too non-Johnsonian for that Maybe just as Johnson influenced all the literature that came after him, so Heywood may have an effect on UP literature. I rather hope so But it is sad to think that this growing body of work has so many holes in it. I think the work of Terri Martin and Sue Harrison and Tyler Tichelaar weave fictions with much less “noodling” in them. Heywood’s book is funny and strong, however, and a very handsome job of bookmaking in boards. It will look handsome next to Martin’s paperback and colorful Straw Horse that has appeared about the same time.
Limpy’s Adult Lexicon: Raw, Politically Incorrect, Improper & Unexpurgated , As Overheard &Noodled by Joseph Heywood {Lyons Press, Essex Connecticut, 2025) 246 pages, hardcover $ 27.95.
