Pick-a-Shelf discussion

As we read our satirical books for this month, here are some questions to ponder and discuss:

Do you like satire? What role does it fill in literature and life? What is the best satire you have ever read?

Feel free to come up with other questions for each other and discuss away!

I'm reading one right now--Evelina so unlike series I have one. It's odd that I didn't have a series book, since that's usually easy for me, but I haven't been reading that much this fall.

I read some satire books and I find it hard to read because I don't always recognize the satire.

Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "I read some satire books and I find it hard to read because I don't always recognize the satire."

Some books of satire have good plots and you can enjoy them even if you don't recognize it.

I see satire as using humor or irony to criticize society. Its highest purpose is to draw attention to, cause people to question, and ultimately change the status quo. But in its gentler forms it may simply shine a light on human behavior, allowing people to laugh at themselves without demanding real change.

I haven't read a lot that I think of as satire, but my personal sensibility probably falls in line with Swift's A Modest Proposal: identify your society's messed up values/priorities and follow them to their most extreme (yet nonetheless logical) conclusion with a straight face. Subtlety is for wimps: deliver a killing blow and get out fast! :-)

In the past, I had a tendency to take books, especially those written before I was born, very literally, as though no one had a sense of humor or was self-aware enough to criticize their own society (through humor, at least) in the 19th century. When I had to read Charles Dickens for classes, for example, I think my teachers may have focused too much on the social issues themselves rather than the hyperbole and irony employed by the author—though you often need to know a fair bit about the society being lampooned if you're going to pick up on the satire at all.

Finally finished! It took me more than a year to get this book read after many false starts. The language in the story is very dated for the current time and, thus, at times the ideas expressed where a bit offensive for today's sensitivities. Yet, at the time of writing, the language and ideas would have been acceptable. It was a wonderful story in the characterization of Huck Finn, but I did not like his friend, Tom Sawyer. I am not up on satire nor do I really understand that mode of writing, so I cannot comment on the shelf.