The Lecturer's Tale is the funniest novel I've read in some time, and it has special appeal if you're a storyteller. The hero is a lowly lecturer in a lit department in a Midwestern university. When his finger is accidentally cut off and then sewn back on, he gains the power to make people do what he wants just by touching them with his new finger-of-God.
Academia is one of the great arenas for comedy, with its hierarchical structure, its pompous professors and its use of a made-up, esoteric language that is, virtually by definition, pretentious. Writer James Hynes makes fun of this world like no one else. He starts with a brilliant premise that combines "low" culture fantasy-horror with "high" culture satire. The hero has a strong Need and Desire on which to hang the jokes. But the strength of the book is the Opposition.
You don't have to be an expert in deconstruction or post-modernism to enjoy the incisive and hilarious jabs that Hynes aims at the egotistical blowhards of this world. In one scene that had me on the floor laughing, an academic deconstructs a novel that hasn't even been written. And another academic argues with his interpretation.
The Lecturer's Tale is especially instructive for anyone interested in writing the advanced comedy form of satire. Satire is very tricky, and is usually done in a clumsy and heavy-handed way. But Hynes is a master. Enjoy and learn.
Academia is one of the great arenas for comedy, with its hierarchical structure, its pompous professors and its use of a made-up, esoteric language that is, virtually by definition, pretentious. Writer James Hynes makes fun of this world like no one else. He starts with a brilliant premise that combines "low" culture fantasy-horror with "high" culture satire. The hero has a strong Need and Desire on which to hang the jokes. But the strength of the book is the Opposition.
You don't have to be an expert in deconstruction or post-modernism to enjoy the incisive and hilarious jabs that Hynes aims at the egotistical blowhards of this world. In one scene that had me on the floor laughing, an academic deconstructs a novel that hasn't even been written. And another academic argues with his interpretation.
The Lecturer's Tale is especially instructive for anyone interested in writing the advanced comedy form of satire. Satire is very tricky, and is usually done in a clumsy and heavy-handed way. But Hynes is a master. Enjoy and learn.