Why I love Satire

I just finished reading the YA novel FEED and it is totally freaking me out. What a nasty horrible little book that is. And how beautifully it sneaks up on you.

I remember going to see A Clockwork Orange with my filmmaker boyfriend when I was 17 years old. He admired the cinematography but allowed that this was one sick film. I felt overjoyed by it, and have seen it probably 20 times. I have taught it at least 10.

Huh?

I’m a feminist. I am a pacifist. That film is – shall we say – ultraviolent. And the book is worse.

A year before that, I was reading an abridged version of Voltaire’s novel CANDIDE, in French for AP French.

“Psst,” said a very wealthy, high-toned classmate to me during study hall at our ritzy all girls private school in NYC. “I found an English translation of it and there’s all this SEX in it. And—“she added. “Some lady got her ass chopped off. It’s really weird. “

I have read and taught that weird little book probably 30 times. Each time it’s a roller coaster. And when I get to the end, and I say what I said when I read it all the other 29 times.

“What does the hell does it mean?” And then --

“Shit – what are we supposed to do?”

And then

“Well, we’d better do something to fix things.”

That’s how satire works. I’ve written about satire as an academic, but not as a reader and admirer of a genre that takes you by the scruff of your neck, throws you on a roller coaster ride, and then – right when you’re getting off and getting ready to puke -- kicks you in the teeth. Several times. All that vomit sliding back down your throat. Disgust, Horror. Why did I go on that ride? you ask yourself. Because you’ve been tempted by the thrill of it. Sex, violence, drugs, Gulliver pissing all over Lilliput. YAY!

Yay?

A Clockwork Orange -- both the novel and the film -- thrills you with language. So does CANDIDE. So does Zamyatin’s under-read novel WE (which heavily influenced Orwell’s 1984 [and influenced is a polite way of putting it]). So does Catch 22. And so does FEED. As a student of mine said once many years ago – the satiric hero is the person we don’t want to admit we’re like, but we crave all the things that person craves. And satire shows us ourselves.

Yuck.

It’s what great writing can do. Trick you into getting ethical. Trick you into kind a sorta getting something like a conscience.

A Modest Proposal, the Handmaid’s Tale, Volpone, American Psycho.

Damn you, Satirists!

Don’t stop writing.