A May/June 2003 Booksense 76 selection.

"A foul-mouthed misanthropic poet from a obscure corner of Europe inspires, in turn, a struggling college in the American West; a superstar professor who decides to stop speaking; and the lucky-in-love misfit student who must watch the professor (in case he starts speaking again). Thus runs the plot for Jordan Ellenberg's The Grasshopper King--both the funniest campus novel in ages, and a slippery, serious-minded investigation of what happens when good languages go bad. If that's not enough, the novel also offers sterling examples of competitive checkers; misguided institutional architecture; "ling-fic" (see below); syncretic cosmogonical folklore; and reasons why people regret ever leaving New York."
--Stephen Burt, Rain Taxi (read whole interview)

"A brilliant debut: Jordan Ellenberg's The Grasshopper King is perhaps the funniest and best-written 'college' novel I've read since Pale Fire-with a considerably more appealing cast of characters than Nabokov's."
--John Barth

"Jordan Ellenberg's one of the funniest, flashiest, zaniest, cleverest and also one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable new young writers around. His first novel, The Grasshopper King, sometimes seems to have been written by the Marx Brothers; other times it's just strong, sharp satire and a good story. If it brings half the laughs and enjoyment to the reader as it did to me, it'll be pure pleasure."
--Stephen Dixon

"Campus novels often tend toward the parochial or the arcane, but Ellenberg breathes fresh air into the genre."
--Publishers Weekly