Loose Leaves

Continuing in the spirit of an earlier post, allow me to dive once more into the swampy pond of ‘google search terms’: the ever eccentric means by which web surfers find themselves stranded on my strange and stony shores.

Pure absurdity is usually the name of the game, especially when phrases such as ‘a game that involves an olive and beard’ turn up (I can’t say what the seeker wanted in this case, but they undoubtedly found themselves at the feet of Alexis Pathenikolides). The subject of today’s discussion, however, is to be a much abrupter term: something short and sweet, though nonetheless stimulating .

The inviting ‘foliage novel’ is the term to which I refer. And the questions, as always, abound. What could be lurking behind such a query? Is someone, somewhere, yearning for fiction that contains rather more foliage than your average book? Has someone hit upon the idea that what modern literature is missing, above all things, is a proper sense of foliage? And if so – to which author might they be instructed to turn?

Funnily enough, google’s fourth suggestion (at time of writing) mirrors my own thoughts, putting forward Y Yippo’s novel Why The Fig Leaves Fall as a possible example of a contemporary novel in which foliage could be said to feature highly. As you probably know, Yippo’s enterprising work imagines a futuristic world run by toucans, in which two humans (coincidentally ex-lovers) are thrown together (in zoo conditions) in order to create a child (read a review here).

What you may not know (unless you have actually read the book in question) is that, beyond its surreal depiction of a toucanitarian state, Why The Fig Leaves Fall contains some of the best description, intelligent utilisation, and deep understanding of foliage to be found in modern european fiction. Under the shade of its words, any foliage lover may shelter, safe in the knowledge that the flowers of foliage-related thought will surely blossom forth.

In short, this book leaves nothing to the imagination.