Nothing Funnier Than the Apocalypse

Dear Sir Chauncey Bloggerford,

Maybe it’s because I’m an egomaniac who thinks the world revolves around me, but I find the comedic novel to be a neglected media. Everyone yammers on about the latest funny film in theaters, and each and every season, studios scramble to shove out another fresh lineup of half hour comedic programming on television. Yet, where is all the ballyhoo for quality comedic literature? When did we get the notion that books have to be boring lumps of dramatic prose where somebody gets a disease or solves a crime or learns to love their father/mother/long lost dead uncle Larry while solving a crime?

Personally, I blame Oprah. As far as I know, I’ve never read an Oprah book club selection. Now, I know some will say, Steinho, but what if you really liked the subject, or were planning to read it anyway, before Oprah suggested it? What then? Would you give up the chance to read something really great simply to spite Oprah?

The answer is yes. I was born a contrarian and I’ll be a contrarian until Gandalf comes to take me into the West with Frodo.

I just hate the idea that a book can’t be both smart and funny, or rather, that a book can’t be funny at all. Right now I’m thinking to all the fiction sections in the book store. There are romance novels, mysteries, horror stories, Westerns, even sections for the fiction pertaining to specific ethnicities. No comedy. Books apparently, are just not supposed to be funny. Absolute rubbish.

Let's let Oprah off the hook. She's a millionaire and has secret powers. I don't want to wake up with a decapitated Shakespeare bust in my bed. Let's put the blame where it really belongs.

HIGH SCHOOL! This unfortunate phenomenon also stems back to how in high school, we’re all forced to read a myriad of books, some interesting, some boring enough to induce instant comas. (I’m looking at you, Faulkner.) Over time, an association forms between boredom and the written word. This is why I make a big deal of pointing out how bawdy and hilarious certain Medieval writers are. Take Chaucer, for example. Sure, the Canterbury Tales are in Middle English. If you get past that, though, you will find some of the most clever, not to mention, most salacious and hilarious stories you’ll find. The literary world is absolutely overwrought with both the naughty and the silly, but no one wants to take the time to seek it out. Because you’re lazy, world! Lazy like a chubby kid sitting a foot away from the television because he can’t find the remote.

So let me do the work for you. See, I like my books like I like my men. Smart, funny, and possibly holding the key to a magical new world. I’m always on the look out for a book (or a man) who can make me laugh. Unfortunately, funny books are about as hard to find as funny men. Plenty that are funny looking, but not just funny. To spare you the agonizing search, here are a few suggestions for those who might want to take a break from the latest Jody Picoult or Nicholas Sparks and read something not involving a loved one dying of something terrible.

“Gil’s All Fright Diner” by A. Lee Martinez: An evil demon wants to open a portal to hell beneath a local Diner. Unfortunately for that demon, she’s trapped in the body of a small, Asian cheerleader with a curfew. This book also contains the original Werewolf vs. vampire rivalry, only without all the nauseating teen romance. Not only is this vampire not attractive, but he’s also going bald.

“Fluke” by Christopher Moore: A marine biologist thinks he’s going crazy when he spots a whale with ‘You Suck’ painted on its tail. Is the aquatic world turning against him, or has he simply spent too much time out in the sun? Like with Martinez, Moore is all about characters, as wacky as he can get them. Extra props to Moore for showing whales as the jerks they truly are. I gave my allowance money to save your butt, whale. Where’s my thank you card?

“Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: A devil and an angel pair up to ward off the coming Apocalypse, simply because they’ve both got pretty sweet situations on Earth and don’t want to mess it up. I’m not sure which author is primarily responsible for the wealth of hilarity in this novel, but I’ve enjoyed both of their solo work, so I’ll just say it’s a tie.

Grad school is not interesting.

Dear Bloggy Blogter,

Apparently it was not enough that I was forced to read Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” in my sophomore year English class. No, someone out there thought, “Gee! There isn’t enough boring books written about the Salem witch trials! I need to write one more!!!”

That someone was Katherine Howe, author of “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane,” which in my opinion is the second most boring book about the Salem witch trials ever written.

‘But Steinho,’ you ask. ‘For a subject matter so tragic and violent and full of witches, how can this book be boring?’

Well, I’ll tell you, dear readers. It’s because it’s not about witches really. It’s about a girl writing a paper on witches. A PhD candidate looking for a lost book of spells to 1. Make an academic career for herself. 2. Please her crotchety Bostonian advisor who has an accent like Katherine Hepburn, and C. Save her artsy boyfriend’s life who she just met. Not once does it occur to our heroine that maybe it might just be cool to find a book about magic… simply because magic is cool. Not a chance, Steinho. This is Academia. A book written by a history grad student…. About a history grad student! This book is about as much fun as watching someone take an oral qualifying exam for grad school. Oh wait, that actually happens in the second chapter. Thrilling!

It’s like when you ask a friend how their day was, just to be polite, but then they go into a long, drawn out epic about the various trifling obstacles that complicated their journey to complete an otherwise mundane tasks, and by the end you really wonder why you bothered opening your mouth in the first place. That is this book in a nutshell.

The only thing that made this book interesting was picturing the villain, the previously mentioned evil Professor Chilton Manning, as being played by Christoph Waltz from “Inglorious Basterds.” By the way, this Professor is evil because he knows alchemy and magic are real and he wants Connie (the heroine) to find her grand mamma’s spell book so he can steal it and make the philosopher’s stone. Wow, did you come up with that plot line all by yourself? Or did we simply fall asleep reading the first Harry Potter book? Methinks the latter!

Deliverance Dane is the sort of literary self-gratification that so offends my creative mind. Back when I was studying pagan religion in undergrad, I would have loved to discover a hidden ability to shoot magic blue beams out of my hands or find I was secretly the great-great-great grand daughter of Joan of Arc or Morgan la Fey. Especially since that would mean I was either part French or related to King Arthur. But you don’t see me going around writing a book about every sleep deprived fantasy I concoct while studying for my Comp. Lit class on Arthurian Chronicles through the ages. That would just be lame.

Well, except for maybe that fantasy I had where Arthur and Lancelot are two buddy cops, patrolling the mean streets of Camelot, and Merlin was a crack addict lacing his drugs with real magic dust. That might not be so lame.

If I was going to get all analytical, I would say that Howe spent too much time focused on her history and Connie’s quest to find the spell book, and not enough time on making any of her characters remotely interesting. By the end, I really didn’t care if she found the book and saved her precious gentleman friend or not, though I knew she would, and that everything would magically turn out okay. Because the book is someone’s FANTASY and usually ladies don’t write themselves out of the story before they get to fall in love and live happily ever after with their boy toy and their new found magical abilities.

Maybe I'm just being harsh. Or maybe Katherine Howe really IS a witch, and this horrendously boring book is just a clever ruse to drive all interest away from the subject, thereby allowing her to live and practice magic in peace!

Gee, I can't wait for the day when some over-educated brat rips my book apart and mocks me openly in their newfangled space blog! That'll be the day!

I'd Forget My Dead Husband Too.

Dear Bloggypants,

I know a blog posting when I see one, and this needed to be said.

Okay, haters. What were you expecting? Gladiator all over again? Well, you shouldn’t have hired Brian Helgeland to write your script then.

Seriously, it could have been a lot worse. Trust me, I know. Do you know how many dopey cheestasic Robin Hood ‘retellings’ there are in the literary world? More than I want to talk about. Just to keep this blog post consistent with all my previous blog posts, I’ll toss in the name of one such not so great version of Robin Hood, simply titled “Hood” by Stephen R. Lawhead. Here’s a little synopsis so we can get back to talking about Russell Crowe. Basically, this author just took the same characters, slapped some y’s in their names to make them Welsh, and went about his business. Let’s get about ours.

So you wake up one morning and your father-in-law decides it’s best for the whole family to marry the son of an old friend, just so you can keep your 5000 acres. Because your real husband, his son, is now dead. What? Junior’s dead? Better get one of my friend’s kids to pretend to be him! Sound like a bad deal to you? Apparently it doesn’t to Cate Blanchett because that’s what happens in this Robin Hood version. To be fair, she now gets to make out with Russell Crowe. A lot.

Again, I just want to ask the question. What were you expecting disappointed critics and movie goers? The movie had a TON of great action scenes, way more than your precious “Iron Man 2.” There were fights in a forest, fights in a village, sieges on multiple castles. Even a huge epic fight ON A BEACH! And by the way, Cate Blanchett must own her own set of female chain mail by now, considering how often she wears it in movies.

I admit Brian Helgeland is not known for his moving and realistic dialogue. This movie had more cheese than the Craft Service spread during filming. BUT, it also had a delightful band of friends, including a sassy redhead and Mark Addy. Sound like any other Brian Helgeland movie you know, one with knights, and a really good looking Australian lead????? Hmm??? I think it had Knight in the title??? Well guess what, nay sayers! I loved that movie too, cheesy crap dialogue and all!!!

I’m not telling you to go see this film. I loved it, but I love crap like this. I love sword fighting, and horses, and castles, and rolling English landscapes, and old fashioned costumes and Russell Crowe in tights, hitting on fine ladies like Cate Blanchett. I love pub songs, and drunken British men. Or drunken men singing in British accents. Both are good.

If you like any of the above, you will enjoy this movie. All I can say is this. It was less boring than “Iron Man 2.”

Now who is the hater? Revenge is mine.

(Evil laughter.)

Awkward conversations in book stores.

Dear. Mr. Blogadere,

If we are going to be friends, there are two things that you should know about me. One is that I read a ton of books. Two is that I become an arrogant, snobby, know-it-all pukefaced twit when it come to talking about them, though some of you might have already gathered this fact from the title of my blog. The truth of the matter is, I simply started reading early, and therefore, simply have had more time to cipher out what is an excellent read and what should be used to paper the bottom of a ravenous, over-sized parrot’s cage. This often makes life a bit on the awkward side for me, though. For example, back when I used to work for Lords Barnes and Noble as the head of the children's department, I’d encounter this little scenario.

Parent: I need a book for my idiot teen.
Me: Well, what do they like? Sports, shopping, wizards…
Parent: I don’t know! I am a bad parent and know absolutely nothing about my child! Just give me whatever you liked when you were a kid.
Me:….“Crime and Punishment?” How about “Oliver Twist?” That at least had a kid in it.
Blank stare from parent.
Parent: Oliver who?

I don’t say this to brag. Okay, I don’t only say this to brag. The point I’m making underneath the layers of self-satisfaction are that too often today children don’t like to read, and the books they do pick up are brain-numbing drivel. You know which books I’m talking about, so I won’t even say their names. That’s why I turn into a spastic twelve-year-old when I find good fiction for young adults.

CUE DALE E. BASYE, writer of an absolutely brilliant and clever series called “Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go.” Following the misadventures of a nerdy lad named Milton Fauster who dies in a giant marshmallow explosion, Heck shows what happens to bad kids when they die. What happens is a hilarious string of humiliations and classes with some of history’s most despicable humans. Lizzy Borden teaches home economics. Blackbeard teaches gym and there‘s a specific class and level of heck for every junior criminal. It’s Dante’s “Inferno” for kids, with as many types of humor as there are fiery rings in Mr. Alighieri’s underworld. A tapestry of toilet humor woven together with clever references to both wicked historical and literary figures through time. Just look at the main character’s name. Look at it and dare to say this book was not written by a nerd for other book nerds! Do you get it? Please say you get it. I’ll give you some clues. “Paradise Lost,” about Satan’s fall from Heaven was written by a man named BLANK and BLANK is the name of a play about a guy who makes a deal with the devil, and ends up going to Hell. See??? See how clever it is?????

I consider books like Heck a reward to young people for being smart. You read a lot and in turn learn a lot, you understand the references, you get to be in on the joke. You end up feeling SMARTER THAN EVERYONE IN THE ROOM!!! I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s kind of like what James Joyce and T.S. Eliot intended with the Modernist movement of literature. They purposely filled their work with references to history and other works of literature, to force readers into educating themselves in order to understand it. That having been said, DO NOT give your twelve-year-old a copy of “Ulysses” for Christmas. They will not understand it and feel like a big spazz when they can’t read French or Latin.

Thanks, Dad. Thanks a lot.

Try something a few steps down. Like “The Phantom Tollbooth.” Or Roald Dahl. Or Heck, by Dale Basye.

And if young people still don’t want to read…well… the world always needs more professional athletes.

Just get in your boat and save me.

Maybe I’m just a mutinous whore, but I hate when my wizard books are ruined by romantic intrigue. There is a reason why Arwen is barely mentioned in Lord of the Rings. And as funny as it was to read about Harry Potter making out with Ginny Weasley, I would have been just as interested, if not more so, had she been eaten by a giant snail monster. Correction. I would have been infinitely more interested by the snail monster, because how often do you get to read about one of those. Teens making out? If I wanted to see that, I could just go to the nearest mall.

Really this is just a lesson in not taking book recommendations from strangers. A few weeks back, after viewing “How to Train Your Dragon” for the second time, I thought to myself, “Amanda. If you go see this movie one more time in theatres, people are going to think you’re a nut ball.” So I decided to expand my horizons, and attempt to find some other fantasy book involving dragons, Vikings or some combination of the two. Clearly the universe was against me, because I wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles of Barnes and Noble’s fantasy section and found absolutely nothing. Nothing, I say! Disgraceful.

I had no choice but to turn to the internets, hoping that the tiny robotic man living inside my laptop could find me what I most desired. But all I found was a pit of lies and disappointment. That’s the last I trust an internet stranger on some random forum whose name I don’t remember to recommend me a book.

If memory serves me correctly, I believe I googled ‘Viking fiction,’ but the book did not contain a single Viking. Strike one. The work in question, “The Edge of the World,” by Kevin J. Anderson, consisted of myriad storylines crossing two rival countries named Tierra and Uraba, whose descriptions sound curiously similar to Europe and the Middle East. Strike Two for lack of original setting. Come on, a bunch of people who live in the desert, where scarves on the heads, veils and billowy pants, and you name it Uraba???

The most heinous crime, if I may get back to my original complaint, is that amongst the various threads are two characters from a city in Tierra called Windcatch. Isn’t that just charming. A young, newlywed couple, Criston and Adrea (she’s the perfect sassy, blond heroine whose mother is also an alcoholic) are soooooo terribly in love, but Adrea refuses to hold Criston back from his dreams of exploring the seas! Good for you, Criston! Knock up your wife and then leave her to harvest seaweed with her crippled brother and your mom, while you go play with mermaids and fight skeleton pirates.

BUT WAIT!!!! Omra, the son of the Soldan (sultan???) ransacks Windcatch, but instead of murdering the pregnant Adrea, admires her spirit, and takes her to be his next wife, because the Urabans can have many wives, and his favorite one just died. So chicky-poo marries the wealthy royal desert man, he adopts Criston’s blond baby, and they all live happily ever after.

Well, actually they don’t, because Omra’s second wife kills Adrea’s baby, and Criston throws a bottle into the sea with a letter and a lock of Adrea’s hair so it will find her and they’ll be reunited in the next book!!!! JOY!

Which all leads to a big ol’ STRIKE THREE. Maybe Anderson threw this storyline in there to widen his audience, to make it more than a fantasy story about dragons and castles and epic battles. But guess what? I don’t care about your stupid baby that got bitten by a sand spider. I think that any man who puts a lock of my hair into a bottle hoping it will cross continents to find me, is a moron. You want me back? How about trying to come rescue me? How about getting back in your little boat and sailing down the coast and ripping out Mr. Omra’s throat? Did you ever think about maybe getting off your ass and trying that, Criston?

No you didn’t, because you’re lame. And all you do is whittle boats for village children and cry.

In conclusion, I hate love stories.