Baled Hay: A Drier Book than Walt Whitman's ''Leaves o' Grass''

Bill Nye, the beloved 19th-century American humorist, presents a book of wise sayings so profoundly unpoetic that he specifically boasts about having 'thoroughly eradicated anything that would have the appearance of poetry.' That's the entire joke, and it's glorious. Baled Hay pretends to be wisdom literature while gleefully admitting it's drier than Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass - which is saying something, since Whitman's poetry is already an acquired taste. Nye deliversaphorisms with a straight face: platitudes about reading the book in small doses to cure gloom, on the homeopathic principle that like cures like. The humor lives in the gap between Nye's mock-serious tone and the utter banality of his 'beautiful sayings.' It's a masterpiece of self-mocking Americana, the kind of book that knows exactly what it is and refuses to apologize. For readers who appreciate Victorian-era wordplay, frontier humor, or books that wink at you from across the centuries.