Dispatches from the Tenth Circle: The Best of The Onion

There has, on occasion, been criticism leveled at American humour from us Brits across the pond on the grounds that the US has no grasp of irony. Well, the Onion firmly blows that notion out of the water. Gut-wrenchingly funny, dark as the midnight sky and sharp as a surgeons scalpel I have yet to come across a book so packed with top level merriment. What really sets the Onion apart from all other satirical publications is the incisiveness of its observational comedy: "World Death Rate Steady at 100 percent"; "Aspirin Taken Daily With Bottle Of Bourbon Reduces Awareness Of Heart Attacks". The point-blank absurdity of humanity is exposed again and again with a quality and consistency unsurpassed. The Onion is more than able to cut open the deepest, most banal and ridiculous behaviour of our species and leave the entrails hanging out on display for all to see. "Students Prepare Breasts For Increased Springtime Display". See? In this respect it stands alone: I am a fan of both The Simpsons and Larry Sanders TV shows but this book takes satire to a new level. For those readers not accustomed with US tabloid-style newspaper reporting some feature styles may be unfamiliar......but what the hell. Buy it anyway. In more enlightened moments I like to think that the human race will save itself from destruction only by eschewing all traditional news journalism across the globe in favour of this: the greatest media reporting ever committed to print. "New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks". Sheer genius.

There's truth, and then there's reality. What The Onion prints is never reality, but sometimes it's truer than the front page of the New York Times.I'm known in my circles as a sort of "Mikey" of humor, someone beyond curmudgeon. People tell jokes, and laugh, and say "That's really funny, but let's see if Rivkah laughs."Well, The Onion makes me laugh. Regularly, and outloud. It's beyond satire; I don't think there's a word for the humor in The Onion. There are probably people out there who don't find The Onion funny, but I don't want to know them. With article titles such as "Species of Blue-Green Algae Announces IPO," "Fun Toy Banned Because of Three Stupid Dead Kids," or "Christ Announces Hiring of Associate Christ" you just know it has to be hilarious, and absurd and yet so true. How these writers can pen this stuff day after day without going into seizures, I don't know.I do know that reading The Onion keeps world events in perspective, a service I badly need. Thank goodness it will always be there, because we continue to provide the writers with so much fodder.Yes, you may be able to read The Onion on-line, or if you are very lucky, pick up the actual paper, but still, buy this book. It's so much more portable than your PC. You can take it on appointments, to read while you're waiting, read it over coffee at the corner bakery, or snuggle up in bed with it. You won't be sorry.

While just about every single word in this volume is reprinted from the weekly editions on The Onion's website, you still gotta love this book which you can take anywhere, and make people wonder while you're laughing so hard. Most people think The Onion is merely a political satire and humor magazine, but the way they make fun of current events is surprisingly deep and the dark, observational humor is often ingenious and even disturbing. Headlines of note in this book are "ACLU Defends Nazis' Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters" in which The Onion finds the contradications in so-called political correctness (lest you think The Onion is all bleeding-heart leftists); "Columbine Jocks Safely Resume Bullying" in which The Onion can see the uncomfortable truth that nobody else wants to admit to; and "Hershey's Ordered to Pay Obese Americans $135 Billion" where we can see the irony and hypocrisy in lawsuits that people use to blame others for their problems.To alleviate the heaviness, many of the articles are just plain slapstick humor, but always with an intelligent edge, like "Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs", or "Casual One-Nighter Gives Strom Thurmond Change of Heart on Homosexuality Issue."Whether the stories are just lightweight social satire, or downright disturbing and deeply insightful, they're mostly hysterical in the true Onion tradition. Even the pieces by the "guest columnists" can be deeper than expected. But in light of recent events, watch out for the stories "Terrorist Annoyed by Delayed Flight" and "Arabs, Israelis Sign 'Screw Piece' Accord". Some of this humor isn't for the easily disturbed or offended, that's for sure.

I read this book just days after the World Trade Center attack, and it forced me to lift my spirits--even when I didn't want them lifted. What a delight it is, and just as clever as the earlier Onion books, too. I hope in this climate of terror and recession that people will find the humor in this wonderful volume (it's not hard to locate).

The problem with satire is that the person writing it frequently has an axe to grind. As a result, it will inevitably be offensive, and hence unappreciated, by a significant portion of the population. The Onion has rather ingeniously avoided by this conundrum by mocking everyone and everything. I don't care what group you choose to affiliate yourself with, you're not human if you aren't laughing out loud, with tears streaming down your face, by the third page of "Dispatches from the Tenth Circle".What the brilliant "Our Dumb Century" did for the 1900's, so too does this book for current events. Through the medium of newspaper "articles", political leaders, musicians, actors, sports heroes, popular culture, etc. are lampooned with brutal accuracy. Most amazing is that in a book that contains literally hundreds of articles, almost all of the entries are remarkably literate. I can only describe them by suggesting that the reader imagine what it would be like if Dennis Miller edited the New York Times. Even when the humor turns lowbrow, as it sometimes does, it is so matter of fact that one can't help but laugh. There's no pretense, no embarrassment, just a deadpan delivery of frequently surreal material.This book is not for the easily offended, so if you hold your views and idols sacrosanct, skip this one. However, is you can stand to have that which you hold most dear skewered, and laugh about it, you will not regret purchasing this book. In fact I think former VP Al Gore's (I'm a registered Republican, so you can see what strange bed-fellows this book can make) statement on the back cover puts it best: "This publication is destructive to our shared values. Read it yourself and you'll see what I mean. Seriously, what else could make me laugh - much less laugh uproariously - while being offended week after week.?"