American Dark Comedy

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-2, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Author: Mohammed Hanif
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0307373363
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Teasing, provocative, and very funny, Mohammed Hanif’s debut novel takes one of the subcontinent’s enduring mysteries and out if it spins a tale as rich and colourful as a beggar’s dream. Why did a Hercules C130, the world’s sturdiest plane, carrying Pakistan’s military dictator General Zia ul Haq, go down on 17 August, 1988? Was it because of: 1. Mechanical failure 2. Human error 3. The CIA’s impatience 4. A blind woman’s curse 5. Generals not happy with their pension plans 6. The mango season Or could it be your narrator, Ali Shigri? Here are the facts: • A military dictator reads the Quran every morning as if it was his daily horoscope. • Under Officer Ali Shigri carries a deadly message on the tip of his sword. • His friend Obaid answers all life’s questions with a splash of eau de cologne and a quote from Rilke. • A crow has crossed the Pakistani border illegally. As young Shigri moves from a mosque hall to his military barracks before ending up in a Mughal dungeon, there are questions that haunt him: What does it mean to betray someone and still love them? How many names does Allah really have? Who killed his father, Colonel Shigri? Who will kill his killers? And where the hell has Obaid disappeared to?

Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel

Author: John Stubbs
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393634159
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 840

Book Description
A rich and riveting portrait of the man behind Gulliver’s Travels, by a “vivid, ardent, and engaging” (New York Times Book Review) author. One of Europe’s most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister—as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of the English language: Gulliver’s Travels as well as the Drapier Papers and the unparalleled Modest Proposal, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists. John Stubbs’s biography captures the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakable attachment to an unmarried woman, his “Stella”; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all the answers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, in Jonathan Swift Stubbs has found the perfect subject for this masterfully told biography of a reluctant rebel—a voice of withering disenchantment unrivaled in English.

The Power of Satire

Author: Marijke Meijer Drees
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 902726855X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Book Description
Satire is clearly one of today’s most controversial socio-cultural topics. In this edited volume, The Power of Satire, it is studied for the first time as a dynamic, discursive mode of performance with the power of crossing and contesting cultural boundaries. The collected essays reflect the fundamental shift from literary satire or straightforward literary rhetoric with a relatively limited societal impact, to satire’s multi-mediality in the transnational public space where it can cause intercultural clashes and negotiations on a large scale. An appropriate set of heuristic themes – space, target, rhetoric, media, time – serves as the analytical framework for the investigations and determines the organization of the book as a whole. The contributions, written by an international group of experts with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, manifest academic standards with a balance between theoretical analyses and evaluations on the one hand, and in-depth case studies on the other.

The Swells

Author: Will Aitken
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487009704
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
In this darkly hilarious satire by the inimitable Will Aitken, class war erupts aboard a luxury cruise ship. A boatload of white privilege, The Emerald Tranquility is the most luxurious cruise liner afloat, its passengers some of the richest people in the world. Meanwhile the ship’s crew, overworked and underpaid, live packed tightly together in airless below-deck cabins. The passengers encounter a great number of cataclysms at sea, but no matter the catastrophe, the great ship always sails on. Briony, a globetrotting luxury travel writer, emulates the rich — though homeless and penniless herself — as she hops from gig to all-expenses-paid gig. On her own personal voyage, she encounters Mrs. Moore, an enigmatic woman of advanced age clandestinely fomenting a mutiny on this bountiful ship. With the captain overthrown, roles quickly reverse: the crew become the ship’s new leisure class and the aged passengers learn how to mop floors and scrub toilets. Confused and terrified by the resultant chaos, Briony must decide which lot to cast her fate with in this savage satire of the way we live now.

Beyond Anger

Author: Susan H. Braund
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521356374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Beyond Anger is a detailed literary analysis of the three poems which make up Juvenal's third book of Satires (i.e. Satires 7, 8 and 9). Dr Braund pays particular attention to the satiric techniques Juvenal employs in this book, arguing that in Book III Juvenal uses a new, ironic persona, which makes his satire more indirect, subtle and double-edged than does the angry approach found in the earlier books.

Satire

Author: Arthur Pollard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315313839
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Book Description
First published in 1970, this work explores the literary genre of satire. After identifying the definitive aspects of satire, it goes on to examine the subjects which can be susceptible to satire, the modes and means of satire, the tone of satire and the satirist’s relationship with the reader. In doing so, it introduces the reader to a number of key satirical writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Jonathan Swift, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. This book presents a comprehensive overview the genre and provides a useful starting point for those wishing to further study satirical literature.

Satire

Author: John T. Gilmore
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134106335
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
What is satire? How can we define it? Is it a weapon for radical change or fundamentally conservative? Is satire funny or cruel? Does it always need a target or victim? Combining thematic, theoretical and historical approaches, John T. Gilmore introduces and investigates the tradition of satire from classical models through to the present day. In a lucid and engaging style, Gilmore explores: the moral politics of satire whether satire is universal, historically or geographically limited how satire translates across genres and media the boundaries of free speech and legitimacy. Using examples from ancient Egypt to Charlie Hebdo, from European traditions of formal verse satire to imaginary voyages and alternative universes, newspaper cartoons and YouTube clips, from the Caribbean to China, this comprehensive volume should be of interest to students and scholars of literature, media and cultural studies as well as politics and philosophy.

Beyond Decadence

Author: Peter Butler
Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
ISBN: 8024625717
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Jan Opolsky has long been considered to be little more than an epigon of the Czech Decadence. By detailed analysis of his prose, this book aims to show that Opolsky is a master of sustained narrative irony and an accomplished writer in his own right. Introduction brings an overview of Czech Decadent/Symbolist literature and art in an European perspective. The first monograph evaluates archival sources, private correspondence with other literary figures and includes classified bibliography of Opolsky.

Satire and Dissent

Author: Amber Day
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253005140
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
In an age when Jon Stewart frequently tops lists of most-trusted newscasters, the films of Michael Moore become a dominant topic of political campaign analysis, and activists adopt ironic, fake personas to attract attention—the satiric register has attained renewed and urgent prominence in political discourse. Amber Day focuses on the parodist news show, the satiric documentary, and ironic activism to examine the techniques of performance across media, highlighting their shared objective of bypassing standard media outlets and the highly choreographed nature of current political debate.