Malcontents is a bug-crushing anthology of some of the greatest satire throughout history, put together by Joe Queenan. Colleges should build English literature courses around it. Then again, many of the authors would probably be up in arms for not calling it Irish literature.
Because there are lots of Irish authors here – Jonathan Swift, Wilde, Shaw, and a newspaper writer who was new to me named Flann O’Brien. O’Brien’s pieces are a history of his side business selling a sort of sophistication to the idle rich. It starts off with “bookhandling,” where he and his employees will make the unused books of the illiterate bourgeoisie appear to have been read. For extra, he’ll even forge signatures and dedications from the authors. His business escalates and hilarity ensues.
It also goes back to Aristophanes and Juvenal. Machiavelli is included, which might seem odd but really isn’t considering he was secretly awesome. And then there are the people you’d expect: Gogol, Mark Twain, Voltaire, de Sade, and others. It’s really a great book to have lying around for when you’re in the mood to read some righteous indignation of the highest quality, like, ever.
Queenan prefaces each of the authors’ selection(s) with a biographical essay. His love of the genre really comes through here. You can tell this is the kind of project that he could barely even consider work since it would’ve involved re-reading and learning about some of the greatest writers who ever lived. So if that’s the kind of project you regularly fantasize about, this is a must-have.
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Atheist Hobos 