Book#35. The Elfish Gene, by John Barrowcliffe.
Hardcover.
This is a delightful little memoir of a geeky boy’s journey
to become a still-pretty-geeky man. The focus of the book is on John
Barrowcliffe’s affection for the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, and
how that game has shaped his life. For better and worse.
Barrowcliffe details how D&D shaped his views on
relationships, both with other boys and with girls. His stories of actually
obtaining girlfriends is humorous. The realizations he reports learning later
in life was interesting, as well. Looking through pictures, he has recently
realized he was not the ugly boy he always thought he was; he was in fact
average, maybe a little better than average. Looking back, he realizes that the
girls were not interested in him because of his personality alone, but in spite
of it.
There is a real vulnerability in this book, as the best
memoirs contain. And despite the specificity of the subject matter, I think
much of what is in the book applies to anybody who viewed themselves as an
outcast growing up. Or knows someone who did.
A note about the importance of book titles. If this book had
been called anything other than a pun on a famous biology book, I would have
completely passed over it in the library.
Source: public library
No comments:
Post a Comment