satire..

This has been an absolutely quiet weekend. Most of it was spent lolling around on the sofa, watching absolute crap on TV or reading. Waiting for my mum to finish some shopping on Luz corner, I stepped into a second hand bookshop and started looking through their collection of books. Ive never bought a second hand book, as ive always found their musty smell rather a put off and also because I have some vague dislike towards second hand things in general. But when I saw Heller’s Good as gold in a pretty good condition on the stands, I just had to get it for myself. One of the reviews says “it does for Washington DC what Catch-22 did for the military”. Anyway, Catch-22 was a superbly satirical and funny book and im glad to have something more to read from the same author. There is this other book of Heller’s that I’ve been wanting to get, Something Happened. Should look out for that next.
Heller’s catch-22 got me thinking about satirical literature. I love books with a strong satirical streak in them. I always imagine satirists to be laid back, indifferent and irreverent people with a superbly cynical view of life and things in general. The world is put forth for their pleasure and they take it apart with their wit. There is this advantage in satire that nothing is below satire or above it. So, the author has almost a infinite range of subjects for him to exercise his wit on. There is also the genre of critics who believe that satire is the worst of literature, because it is too easy to make anything an object of ridicule. But at the heart of the satirical piece is not the object that is being satirized but the manner in which the satire plays upon the object. Subtlety and smart judgement are essential for any piece of satire as it is very easy to overstep the limit and hence degrade into slapstick comedy or over reach itself and become an invective. Satire has been most impressively used in political topics to launch sharp, critical attacks against certain parties or philosophies without appearing vindictive or resentful. Some of the earliest exposure I had to satire was from G B Shaw and Chares dickens. Shaw was brilliant in Pygmalion and Dickens’ satire was prominent in Pickwick papers, where the protagonist Pickwick dons the mantle of an innocent and simple hearted bystander, narrating his experiences from his journeys undertaken for the edification of his club members. In Little Dorrit, he mocks the bureaucracy, in Dombey and Son, the father’s blind partiality towards his son, in Oliver Twist, the (ig)noble institutions that help the destitute by further incapacitating them. I am going to delve more deeply into the earlier works of satire and the stages of its evolution. I think satire originated as a means of expressing derision to a particular thing, where in an author felt strongly opposed to something and hence satirized it but then it has evolved into a stand-alone style of writing where the objects vary but the style is consistently satirical. This is a quote from John Oldham, who wrote satire for satire’s sake.
Satyr’s my only province and delight
For whose dear sake alone I’ve vow’d to write:
For this I seek occasions, court abuse,
To show my parts and signalize my muse.
Got my hands on several CDs yesterday – The Doors, Seinfeld, The Godfather Trilogy, Goodfellas and some other stuff. Happy times ahead!!