Recommend me some good satire

[spookymulder93]

I'm going to order the Satyricon and wanted to know if their was anything else I should check out.

[Desolation]

Candide by Voltaire
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

[dfloyd]

without knowing about the reign of Nero, who ordered Petronius Arbiter to commit suicide. The book has many missing chapters which have been lost. It also has homosexuality and pedestry, which were not considered unusual by the Romans.

To prepare your self, read the section on Nero in Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Also, I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves tells how Nero became emperor. Claudius was poisoned by his third wive, Agrippina, the mother of Nero by a previous marriage. Agrippina had an incestuous relationship with her son. But Nero eventually grew tired of Agrippina and had her strangled.

A good fiction book to read in which both Nero and Petronius Arbiter figure prominantly is Quo Vadis? by Henryk Sinciewicz, a Nobel prize winner. The Satyricon is not a book you just pick up and read without extensive preparation. As I said, you probably wont enjoy it or understand it without preparation.

[MadcapLaugher]

Candide by Voltaire
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Seconded!

[johnw1]

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal - argues that eating babies is the logical solution to famine in Ireland...

[Patrick_Bateman]

Candide ugh!

what a thoroughly BORING read

[laymonite]

Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Palahniuk's ________________________

[kelby_lake]

Vanity Fair
The Devil's Dictionary
The Loved One

[Seasider]

"The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope...delightful satire on the idle rich in the 18th century. Dryden's poem Absalom and Achitophel is a biting satire but it requires a knowledge of the political situation of the time of Charles 11 of England.
Chaucer's Prologue has wonderful satirical portraits of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Byron's poem "The Vision of Judgement" is a wonderful satire about the attempt of George 111 to get into Heaven. Satire is a criticism of the manners and pretensions of certain people or groups at a certain time and so one has to familiarise oneself with the times referred to.

[PeterL]

Most of what Jonathan Swift wrote was satire. You might also want to read works by Addison and Steele from the same period.

In recent times the best satire that I have read was The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson.

[Gregory Samsa]

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.


Dunbar sat up like a shot. "That's it," he cried excitedly. "There was something missing – and now I know what it is." He banged his first down into his palm. "No patriotism," he declared.

"You're right," Yossarian shouted back. "You're right, you're right, you're right. The hot dog, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mom's apple pie. That's what everyone's fighting for. But who's fighting for the decent folk? Who's fighting for more votes for the decent folk? There's no patriotism, that's what it is. And no matriotism, either."

[DanielBenoit]

Satire:

Two words: Jonathan Swift

Masterpiece:

Five words: A Tale of a Tub

[Drkshadow03]

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

You know, I never thought of Fight Club as satire.

[OrphanPip]

Most of what Jonathan Swift wrote was satire. You might also want to read works by Addison and Steele from the same period.

In recent times the best satire that I have read was The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson.

The Spectator is good, but you have to dig around for the gems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spectator_%281711%29

[Drkshadow03]

Do the Pickwick Papers by Dickens count as satire?

[Dark Passenger]

American Psycho By Bret Easton Ellis... or anything by him for that matter.

Also, Chuck Palahniuk. Pick well with this guy though because he's phoning most of them in. Better sticking to Fight Club or Invisible Monsters.

Like someone else mentioned, Jonathan Swift. Just ignore the adverbs.

[arrytus]

Lucian

[The Atheist]

Everything by Tom Sharpe.

The man's a genius.

And if you haven't already delved into the grandfather of satirists, Jonathan Swift.

[PeterL]

Almost all of Jonathan's Swift's writing was satire, and most of it still makes sense now; although some pieces were about issues that are not noted any more.
All of his works are in the public domain:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a326

The early 1700's were the era of great satire in English with Swift, Addison and Steele, and Alexander Pope.

[Wilde woman]

Would you consider Flannery O' Connor a satirist?

And, someone already mentioned it but Pope's Rape of the Lock is hilarious.

[Seasider]

David Lodge...Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work are satires about academics and the Humanities in general. How Far Can You Go? is a novel about a group of Catholics who met as students and who try and negotiate a Good Catholic Life despite the prohibitions of the Church before Vatican 2. Very funny, especially if you are a Catholic.
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is another satire about life in academe. Dorothy Parker is a sharp observer of the Battle of the Sexes in 1930s New York.

[Emil Miller]

Without a doubt, Animal Farm by George Orwell.

[Lord Macbeth]

AHEM:

George. Bernard. Shaw.

And:

Oscar. Wilde.

That is all. ;)