This witty book is a combination of hip philosophy, science fiction and wordplay that keeps your gray matter busy. It's about a virus that gets out of control, but the twist is: this virus alters humans in a strange way, causing people to lose their symbolic abilities including speech. Suddenly humanity is cut free from our ancestor's cultural baggage, and the result is something extraordinary, and the climax of the book.
Getting to the climax is half the fun, since the author likes to play with language, and uses it to convey a sort of "be here now" type philosophy. His interspersed poetry and word games clearly illustrate what we might lose if our ability to verbalize our thoughts is taken away. Our language is imprecise at best, and he ponders whether humanity is better off or worse for it.
As a big fan of sci-fi, I found the science a bit light, and the book strays at times from its main theme, but it's still good reading. I recommend it to anyone who digs offbeat books by the likes of Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams.
