Don Quijote statua and Torre del Oro in background. Sevilla. Spain. Photo. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/164_3215895/1/164_3215895/cite. Accessed 2 Jun 2017. |
There's also a market for children's books reworked for adult eyes, like Go the F*ck to Sleep and Goodnight iPad (sometimes challenging for our shelvers, as they appear to be actual children's books at first glance). Some publishers, like Quirk Books and Harvard Lampoon, regularly skewer classics and bestsellers - The Meowmorphosis and Android Karenina in the first case, The Hunger Pains and Bored of the Rings in the second. Some filmmakers, like Mel Brooks and Monty Python, have made a career of parody.
Satire is related to parody, with a slight but important difference. Cliffs Notes has this to say about satire: "...[it] is intended to do more than just entertain; it tries to improve humanity and its institutions. A satire is a literary work that tries to arouse the reader's disapproval of an object — a vice, an abuse, a faulty belief — by holding it up to ridicule." Or, to quote Publishers Weekly, "You can aim it at governments, you can aim it at institutions. You can aim it at bureaucracies, businesses, special interests, religions and of course at individuals. Any place where hypocrisy and vice lurk – and where don’t they lurk?" A very famous and biting early satire is Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.
Satire or parody - which would you rather read? Have you read any you'd particularly recommend? Let us know in the comments! Or, check out some parodies and satires from the library catalog:
Parodies
Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody by Chelsea Cain
The Autobiography of James T. Kirk: The Story of Starfleet's Greatest Captain by James T. Kirk
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones (J) [eBook]
An Apology For the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Look Who's Back by Timur Vernes
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison [eBook; basis for Soylent Green]
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
For more, try a subject search of "Satire."
You & Me by Padgett Powell
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones (J) [eBook]
An Apology For the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Look Who's Back by Timur Vernes
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison [eBook; basis for Soylent Green]
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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