The Proteus at once twice three times three times hiroshima shimmy shum—a saucy salsa language bubblebath in an ocean that will be drained in a thousand years and the skeleton of a new creature will be discovered: the thesaurusosaurus. Much like the stegosaurus, but with libraries on its back instead of shields.

Or perhaps it is a singing thesaurus, or what a thesaurus would sound like if it were an opera. Not that Casamassima is using a thesaurus to construct a text like a freshman composition class may overuse; no, the sounds of words to Christophe are musical notes that he has clearly memorized (or purloined from other literary purloiners) and we are a lucky audience at the debut of a concerto that has no fixed address: not in a hall, or even in a time or space.

Casamassima proves he is a master debater in the field of intertextualcourse, and an ahimsa scribe of space, white space, and grey blends from the black symbols us simple folk call words.

Casamassima shows us that sometimes you have to bore through a text to get to a reader; sometimes you have to knock down a context to speak to a reader; sometimes you have to swat away subtext to captivate the reader; and sometimes you have to do all three simultaneously with power tools made from moth wings, moths that had the temerity to eat every bible the gideons left sitting around like pigeon droppings on a deposed dictator.

The Proteus is a fascinating thought experiment of what happens if you try to juggle chainsaws and infants: the buzzing remains long after you have slid the book on your shelf or dropped it off at The Book Thing or left on a subway seat. If the language Casamassima is working through doesn’t make your inner ear itch, then at least the book makes for an interesting hat.