How Do Fiction Comedy Books Handle Serious Themes Through Jokes?

Anime fans of the comedic and romantic styles will particularly enjoy ‘The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya’ written by Nagaru Tanigawa. High school girl Haruhi has unknowingly brought about a number of changes to her reality and is kept an eye on by Nikaido Yuki. ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ by Bisco Hatori is also extremely funny and contains a lovingly romantic storyline, which runs throughout this over-the-top novel. These are perfect examples of novels that are written in the style of anime and will be thoroughly enjoyed by fans.

A truly light-hearted book is often associated with a single, strong and distinct narrative voice that reads like a friend’s story. While Lemony Snicket’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is a very dark book, the voice of the narration is so arch, witty and light in terms of language that the overall feeling is one of lightness, even when reading about very dark events. The author’s voice is the main carrier of the ‘lightness’ and can even make a dark story feel joyful.

'Wonder' shows the absence of empathy at first and then the gradual growth of it through a series of small positive moments with Jack, Summer and others, including Miranda’s belated apology. The book is good because it shows kindness is not always rewarded but is worth it. Auggie’s family is good too, in that their love for each other is not perfect. His dad’s jokes hide his fear and his mum’s over-protectiveness is smothering at times, but they both love him relentlessly. The book shows that empathy is not always pretty but it is necessary.

I’m not convinced that blending fact and fiction in historical fiction is inherently difficult to do well or frequently fails to rise to the challenge. We’re smarter readers than that. We all make up stuff as we go along when reading any historical narrative, factual or fictional, as well as the news. Every narrative, whether factual or not, is comprised of an event or facts and the author’s interpretation of them. Thus a novel that mirrors this process will feel true to life. Most people are aware that a movie ‘based on a true story’ is mostly a work of fiction, even when it’s attempting to be entirely factual. Historians and biographers certainly imagine private conversations between their subjects. No reader expects absolute accuracy from a historical novel, only that the story is true in terms of emotional and thematic veracity. Does it feel true? Does it illuminate something about human nature within the given facts? Yes? Then it’s effective and an entirely legitimate form of modern fiction.

The quality of quantity in KU writing is just incredible. There are thousands of titles here. To make sure that every humor-seeker can find something that appeals to them, no matter how narrow or specific their humor is, there are lots of mainstream comics and bestsellers in the biggest categories for general humor. But the real depth of the long tail of content in KU means that in order to find the most peculiar, offbeat, funny book ever written, you have to plunge into the many lesser categories or search using very specific keywords. Humor is peculiar, and often even too weird for mainstream authors and even most mainstream published books. But often a book that is written specifically for you, even and especially in oddity, will be just too your cup of tea. You’ll have to be an adventurer with an open mind, but you will find it.

This is a phonetic ambush, set up by the confusion between ‘Candice’ and ‘can dis’. The resultant answer to the question for the surname can be crude and surprise many. It is not a classic joke, but an interactive piece which can elicit reactions of horror as well as cheers of applause. It is being MEMEd (added to the memes of the internet) again and again, popping up on new platforms every few years to introduce the piece to a new generation. Learning this piece is like learning a secret handshake for some silly and immature club.

While there are many ‘great tribulation’ storylines found within the realms of fantasy and sci-fi, few if any manage to convey the full psychological depth of the events found in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. A “great tribulation” isn’t merely a story and/or movie about some external entity attempting to destroy a particular civilization in order to test their faith or some other attribute; rather it is the trying of a civilization’s very identity. In the case of Children of Time this identity is slowly and inexorably changed by an outside intelligence over the course of generations. The tribulation of the human crew is slowly eroded as their original mission is strippey byitty one peg at a time while at the same time the massive numbers of spiders go through a forced evolutionary and intellectual apotheosis. The tribulation is dual-layered and long-lasting which is what ultimately makes the ‘ending’ so very earned and even more unsettling than it might have otherwise been. This kind of ‘tribulation’ is handled in many great tales of fantasy and sci-fi, but none of them as superbly as ‘Children of Time’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Here the conflict is not so much with an alien enemy as with the slow destruction of a human mission and of human minds, and with the forced evolution of an alien species through a kind of intelligencedownload. There’s a real ‘tribulation’ going on here – not just a fight – and it’s spread over generations. It’s a quietly horrible set of ideas, and a deeply rewarding read. Very gripping. Very unique.

Emotional payoff is the core consideration of all middle-grade novels: will good things happen to good people, will they learn important lessons, and will the world be a harmonious place in the end? And so novels at this age level are naturally going to explore themes of friendship, of courage, of fairness. The Adult rating on the other hand allows for exploration of the grim and of the nihilistic, of the futility of war, of the corrupting influence of power, of the fragility of sanity. So the rating is a promise to the reader of how much emotional and psychological pain they are going to have to go through to read the book, and so it has a huge influence on what themes a writer will explore, and how. Systemic injustice, for example: a YA novel about this sort of theme would look at ways to overthrow such a system, an Adult novel about the same theme would look at ways to survive within it.

The tragicomedy is a rich and complex genre, with many great authors to choose from. I chose to focus on Shakespeare, particularly since his plays are some of the first examples of tragicomedy, such as ‘The Tempest’. Also noteworthy is David Foster Wallace, author of the Near-Infinite Jest. Although the Near-Infinite Jest is largely a tragedy, it contains a considerable amount of humor and observation, allowing readers to experience tragedy while laughing at the humanity on display. Both authors explore many themes to add depth and relatability to the tragicomic genre.

I think a really good book for someone to start to learn more about science through fiction is “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion. As a genetics professor, Don Tillman is a very logical person. He tries to develop a system to find the love of his life, but everything doesn’t go as planned. The book is very fun and heartwarming. It’s not really a chemistry book, but it does show the kind of way that scientists look at the world, and how they try to solve problems. This book is very good for someone who is starting to look into the world of science, because it shows a very logical person trying to solve problems in his everyday life in a very scientific way. ‘The Disappearing Spoon’ is another fabulous book that weaves great stories about the elements and their scientists with the hard facts. My belief is that beginners will find this an exciting and less frightening introduction to the ‘hard’ science of chemistry. Sam Kean’s clever weaving of historical events, the odd personal tales and his in-depth descriptions of the various elements mean that a great big story is constructed from seemingly dry facts. As Don Tillman recognises in ‘The Rosie Project’, scientists are just as fascinating as any fictional characters and Sam Kean has an array of characters to pull from the long list of the scientists of the elements. A Science Fiction book that centres around someone involved in Forensic Science has to be considered for this list and in this case, the main protagonist David Hunter is a forensic anthropologist which makes ‘The Chemistry of Death’ by Simon Beckett an ideal science fiction book. Although it is more centered towards the aspects of a Forensic Scientist, the detail that goes into the chemical processes of decay, could be of great interest to someone starting out in chemistry. It’s a great ‘story’ book, with plenty of suspense that keeps you gripped to the book, whilst always coming back to Chemistry within the story. This historical fiction novel is set in the 18th century. A young woman, Emilie, was brought up by her alchemist father in isolation. Her father taught her the alchemist’s craft, and after his death, she is left alone with many questions. She sets out to discover the truth about her father’s life and his work. Her journey becomes one of discovery and of the roots of chemistry. The author provides a great insight into historical science and the novels follows the main character on her journey of discovery and growth. A most enjoyable and thought provoking non-fiction book relating chemistry to real crimes is ‘Elements of Murder’ by John Emsley. This book tells the dark history of poisonous elements used throughout time for crime and assists the reader to understand the aspect of chemistry that can be important in Forensic Science and Environmental issues. This book is written in an entertaining manner making an enjoyable and enjoyable read providing a real insight into real life crime.