More Than Words

"Kennedy is every bit Koch's match as a joker in the deck, but the kinship pretty much ends there: Laconic and piquant where Koch is raucous and frenetic, Kennedy has always found his calling as a mordant wit in the old-school mold, a dab hand at the dapper style of snappy raillery and gadfly waggery that delivers its licks by way for formal prosody."
The above is taken from a Boston Globe review of five recently released books of comic poetry.
Now I'm a reasonably intelligent person, I've even been known to read a book or two, but there are a lot of words in that sentence that I'm unfamiliar with. When I read I'm okay with not knowing a word or two per book chapter. In fact I like the idea of exposure to new vocabulary. If I have a pen handy I'll jot them on my bookmark and look up their meanings later. But a half-dozen words in one sentence? That's quite a sentence. Is the writer trying to show off? Is he trying to make really good use of that Word-A-Day calendar he got in the office Yankee Swap? What are the chances that mere mortals like myself will go out and purchase any of the five books that were reviewed after being unable to understand the review? This review makes me feel like a bloomin' idiot. It's as if not only did I not understand the novel, I couldn't even grasp the CliffsNotes. The review's author, David Barber, is the author of his own book of poetry, I won't be picking that up any time soon either.
On a brighter note, another review in the same issue of the paper told me, in words I could comprehend, that I can change my brain and boost my brain power by simply changing the mug I drink my morning cup of tea out of. I'm fond of that mug, but I might give it a try. Perhaps with that extra brain power I'll be able to decode Mr. Barber's cryptic sentence.

song: More Than Words • artist: Extreme