Terry Lindvall

An interesting book that has some flaws. First of all it suffers from what I call the first rule of humor, "Discussing humor is inherently unfunny." And while satire isn't always or even mostly laugh-out-loud funny, it should lead one from a smile to a nod to thinking about the deeper underlying point. The author seems to recognize that his presentation gets a little dry and attempts a joke or two at what could most charitably be called a "dad joke" level. (As an expert on dad jokes, I know them when I see them.) A lot of the early satires that the author quotes verbatim are almost unreadable, which means we are then reading an explanation of some one else's satire, and it is a little tiring and not all that enlightening.

I appreciate the author's quadrant way of defining the different satirists.

I also thought the book would be better if it just had had believers doing the satire-ing. It is almost trivial for people who don't believe in something to mock or satirize it. But they don't have the fundamental desire for improvement to result, many times their goal is elimination which isn't in the spirit of true satire.

Finally the last part of the book is a love song to Steven Colbert. Possibly well deserved, but seemed a little over the top.

Worth the read, but it was a slog.… (meer)