I suppose it doesn't matter that I don't know what Adverbs is about. I just finished the book, and I'm unsure even now who the characters are or how they're related, even though Daniel Handler keeps dropping hints - are they hints? - of their interconnectedness. Strangely (I also notice every adverb now), I keep reading. Plot usually matters to me. Plot is the pulp of the thing that is the story. But the plot here is a mess, like a drunken dream. Handler even acknowledges that the reader is not going to figure this out, that I'm being toyed with. The writing is terrific, though. I didn't know half of what was going on in Ulysses, either, but my copy is mangled with folded corners and scribbles in the margins. Not that Adverbs is Ulysses, but it ain't bad. I keep flipping to the back jacket and looking at Handler's picture, and this guy looks like he could have been in a writing workshop with me. We don't seem that different. Except this guy is a multimillionaire.