satire

Jan 11 2010

The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus by Tom Breen

I won The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus: Dispatches from the Intersection of Christianity and Pop Culture by Tom Breen in a Facebook or Twitter giveaway from the good folks at Baylor Press. I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of it but is sounded interesting and it was a quick read. So I bumped it up the TBR pile.

I am afraid I am going to offer one of my truisms again. What you think of it will have a lot to do with what you expect and the attitudes you bring to it.

Here is Publishers Weekly:

In this entertaining gem of religious satire, Breen, an AP journalist, skewers American Christianity from every imaginable angle. Calling himself the ‘Internet Theologian,’ Breen romps through the Bible, religious history, denominational differences. Halloween, contemporary Christian music and spectator sports, among other topics. Some of the book is pure silliness, but other sections achieve that elusive ‘perfect storm’ where humor is sharpened by raw intelligence and a keen knowledge of history and theology. Even Breen’s glossary of terms is hilarious. Heck, even his endnotes are funny and not to be missed. (One says merely, ‘Seriously. Wasn’t Calvin a nut?’) Readers seeking irreverent, laugh-out-loud musings on the sometimes ludicrous intersections between faith and pop culture will want to read this insouciant guide.

If you want satire, there is plenty of satire. And there is lot of humor that I found quite funny – from laugh out loud to quiet chuckle. But the larger question is whether the satire and humor adds up to something more than entertaining reading.

My take after the jump …

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Jun 4 2009

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon by Gideon Defoe

Cover of "The Pirates! In An Adventure Wi...

Cover via Amazon

Instead of repeating myself, allow me to quote from my earlier review of Gideon Defoe’s The Pirates! series:

Last week I described the Eddie Dickens Trilogy as “over-the-top farcical romps” for children; a mix of Dickens, Monty Python, and Lemony Snicket.  Gideon Defoe’s The Pirates! adventure series is in many ways an adult version without the Dickens and with pirates instead.

I stumbled upon The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists at Half Price books.  As I am always on the lookout for short, well packaged, and humorous reading material I picked it up.

It wasn’t very long before I was laughing out loud as I read it.  And when I laugh out loud while reading my wife always makes me read the passage out loud to her (she hates to be left out).  Soon I was practically reading the book to her.  Luckily, the book was short.

The plot is rather hard to describe, but it involves The Pirate Captain and his band of merry men sailing the high seas arguing about shanties and looking for adventure.

Not surprisingly then, when I heard a new The Pirates! adventure was out I knew I needed to read it.  Luckily, I had a coupon and I bought myself a birthday present.

And The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon sparked the same kind of laugh out loud process described above.

This particular adventure involved the Pirate Captain giving up the life of a pirate!  That’s right.  Despondent after losing the Pirate of the Year contest yet again, the Pirate Captain decides to give up adventures on high seas for the quiet contemplative life of a bee keeper.  Luckily, his nemesis Black Bellamy feels sorry for him and sells him the perfect place for such a life: the island of St. Helena.

Those of you who did well in history in school will recall that St. Helena was the island where Napoleon was exiled.  And that it isn’t the tropical locale perfect for bee keeping nor was it Bellamy’s to sell.  Shockingly, it seems Black Bellamy has tricked the Pirate Captain again.

The Pirate Captain is intent on sticking to his new life, however, and soon finds himself in a battle of egos and wills with the famous general as both figures want to be the star of St, Helena.  The problem is the Pirate Captain lacks the tools to battle the man who nearly conquered all of Europe; except his luxuriant beard and stentorian nose.

As in previous adventures, this involves a lot of silliness and slapstick humor including a variety of semi-educational – but still silly – footnotes.  Or as Kirkus calls it: “Relentlessly, aggressively, inventively and often hilariously silly.”

Looking for some light hearted entertainment this summer? What could make better “beach reading” than a book whose exciting climax involves the Pirate Captain and Napoleon wrestling on the beach at St. Helena and in danger of getting swept out to sea?!

Be careful, however, it could lead to frequent laughing out loud.  So be prepared to share what was so funny …

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Oct 7 2008

Christopher Buckley Links

I am a big fan of the whole Buckley family.  Unfortunately, I have been falling behind in my reading of all things Buckley.  It doesn’t help that Christopher cranks out satire faster than I can read it.  His thirteenth novel, Supreme Courtship, has recently been released.  For those interested, here are a couple of useful links:

–> Cheryl Miller has an interview/review mix over at Culture11:

But what’s fiction and what’s not isn’t really the million-dollar question, anyway. Buckley’s books are more about how fiction and reality have melded into each other, how, in the case of Supreme Courtship, politics and TV programming have become all but interchangeable.

–> And Buckley’s long time friend Peter Robinson – Buckley helped Robinson get a job as a speechwriter for VP George H.W. Bush which led to his work with Ronald Reagan – has an multi-part video interview at Uncommon Knowledge.  Episode one and two are up so far.

By Kevin Holtsberry • News • 0 • Tags: ,

Sep 26 2008

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

Book cover of

Book cover via Amazon

I have been trying to put my finger on why I didn’t like the first installment of the Thrusday Next series by Jasper Fforde.  I mean I like satire and books that blend or bend genres.  But I have now finished another book in the series, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, and althoug I liked it better I can’t say I am a fan.

So what happened?  Well, I think it has to do with the style and the lead character.  You either like them of you don’t.  And for whatever reason, I got off on the wrong foot and never really enjoyed either.

For those of you unfamiliar with things, allow me crib the plot from Kirkus Reviews:

Thursday Next returns in another postmodern literary detective fantasy from Fforde (The Big Over Easy, 2005, etc.). Once again, the author creates a world in which only permeable boundaries separate truth from fiction, the living from the dead (or extinct: Thursday knits a sweater for her pet dodo, Pickwick). Our heroine revisits places and people from earlier Fforde novels, as well as from an immoderate number of English and American classics-one memorable page contains allusions to The Woman in White, Robert Ludlum, Jason Bourne, Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House and The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Although the Special Operations Network has nominally been shut down, in reality Thursday works undercover with Acme Carpets and on the side runs an underground cheese market, featuring such tempting morsels as Mynachlog-ddu Old Contemptible, “kept in a glass jar because it will eat through cardboard or steel.” Thursday embarks on a dizzying set of adventures through fictive territory. Untoward things have been happening in the literary world. For example, the natural comedy in Thomas Hardy novels has mysteriously been removed-Jude the Obscure originally began as one of the most “rip-roaringly funny novels in the English Language”-and Thursday travels through space and time to rectify this situation. Her contemporaries are not as interested in reading as they are in watching reality TV shows like England’s Funniest Chainsaw Mishaps or Samaritan Kidney Swap. Meanwhile, Thursday has to deal with Friday, her teenaged lump of a son, whose main goals in life are sleeping and forming a band called The Gobshites.

In case you are wondering, yes there is a lot going on in this novel.

My take on the character and style issues noted above below the fold.

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , ,