If you make a revolution, make it for fun

There’s plenty of humor in The Coroner’s Lunch, Colin Cotterill’s first novel about Dr. Siri Paiboun, sole coroner in Laos. Some of the broadest jokes are at the expense of communist officials and functionaries. There’s plenty of humor in the fourth Siri novel, Anarchy and Old Dogs, as well, but the humor is directed more at politics than politicians and thus dugs deeper.

Some examples:

In this idealistic state, Civilai had chosen to ignore that absence in Laos of one of the fundamental components for a successful communist revolution. There was no rebellious Lao proletariat. There were no factories in which to organize unions, and hardly any working class. ... But by the time the two young men arrived back in Asia in 1929, the seeds of revolt had been planted in their fertile minds. Communism would save their repressed countrymen whether they liked it or not.

and

Haeng held out the book.

“What is it?”

“It’s Chairman Mao’s `Little Red Book.’ We’ve had it translated into Lao.”

“What on earth for?”

and

“A good socialist is not a dustbin, with a closed lid. He is a letter box, always open to receive news.”

“Well, that explains everything. I’ll do my best to keep my slot open.”

That’s all delightful, I think, and it edges Anarchy and Old Dogs closer to satire than the earlier book.

What other crime fiction does this? What other crime writers are satirical, aiming at serious targets, while retaining their sense of humor?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Colin Cotterill
Asia crime fiction
Laos

Disjointed (me, not Colin Cotterill’s book)

I’m reading three or four or five books, including non-crime, so posting may be less cohesive than unusual the next few days. Feel free to respond coherently if you’d like to, though.

First, I may have to retract some of the spleen I vented this week at self-reference in crime fiction. The cause is an exchange from Colin Cotterill’s Anarchy and Old Dogs that includes the following:

“`Very well. In that case, I suspect what we have here is a message written in invisible ink.’

“Phosy raised one eyebrow. `And how would an old bush surgeon know a thing like that?’

“`Inspector Phosy, allow me to reintroduce you to Inspector Maigret of the Palais de Justice. I became very involved in a number of his cases as they were outlined in the pages of l’Oeuvre while I was in France. Unlike ourselves, Inspector Maigret has the very good sense to be fictional, and thus can dispense with such human annoyances as inefficiency and budget restraints… ’

“`I’m impressed. And all this time I thought there was nothing positive to be gained from reading mysteries.’

“`You’d be surprised.’”

Why does it work? The exchange is almost a full page long, which helps. The conversation is believable, and it’s allowed to develop, as a real conversation would; why shouldn’t two colleagues chat about mysteries?

Further, I suspect that many readers are complicit in the sentiment that Cotterill’s Dr. Siri expresses. We indulge his gentle acknowledgment that Maigret is not quite real because it accounts for our love of Maigret. (And that in itself is nice work on Cotterill’s part. Attempts to explain author Georges Simenon’s fantastic popularity are generally far weightier than Cotterill’s sensible observation.)

Third, the exchange is nicely paced, a gentle comedy sketch in miniature, a little story, and not a string of annoyingly self-referential quips.

Fourth, some of the lines are funny – gently so, of course.

=======================

I hinted strongly at incoherence, so here's a non-crime-fiction note: In a possible first in its years-long history, the comic strip Sally Forth was mildly amusing yesterday.

End of note.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

Technorati tags:
Colin Cotterill
Asia crime fiction
Laos