Ezra is a little lackadaisical in manning the back pocket. Geilston Bay, October 2010. Friday means Book Club Friday in this part of the world, and a super-busy week has meant that I’ve not had too much spare time to read. That said, I did manage to finish an odd little book from a German author I’d not read before, The Book of Words by Jenny Erpenbeck. I’ll admit that I struggled through the first fifty or so pages, and I only kept going because it is quite a short novel. It’ll be hard to reflect on it without venturing into possible SPOILER territory, so proceed with caution… The novel is transmitted through a very fragmented, vaporous kind of narrative voice, which initially reads very much like a creative writing exercise written by a talented, but raw and inexperienced writer. While I don’t mind fiddling about with narrative, the almost deliberately obtuse expression initially jars with what concerns the inner life of a young girl. Eventually (after about fifty pages, funnily en...