Trying to read Abort! was comparable to being forced to read Charles Dickens in tenth grade English class. No part of it made any sense to me due to the author’s writing style. The first piece has a run-on sentence that goes on for an entire page. That’s like someone talking to you for two minutes straight without pausing to take a breath. And, oh, the vocabulary just makes it all that much more confusing. For example, an excerpt from that monster of a sentence reads: “Moving with ethereal swiftness and the meticulous tactile reticence of the dreams...” Okay, but what does that even mean? Seriously, that’s not even a phrase I just picked out to make a point. It’s all like that. I really did give that first piece an honest try. I read through it at least five times before I gave up. After that, I started flipping though the zine to see if there was anything that was more accessible but found nothing different. I don’t know whether or not this guy realizes that he’s alienating most of his potential readers by writing in a way that maybe a graduate-level English major could be familiar with (although they, too, would probably be irritated by a page-long run-on sentence). Reading this, I can’t help but wonder, “What is he trying to say in these sixty-eight pages of rambling nonsense?” Who is the audience that appreciates this kind of writing? Because, for me, there are no stories in here to read, only meaningless words lying flat on a page. –Lauren Trout (Jonathan Spies, 45 E. 7th St. #106, NY, NY 10003)
