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stewreads's review
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
michelle_butler_hallett's review
4.0
Garry Trudeau, who writes and draws _Doonesbury_, comments that a satire is totally unfair -- to the target. Trudeau the satirist feels no pangs of guilt and enjoys his job as satirist with relish, even glee.
With Bursey's _Verbatim: A Novel_, it gets hard to say where the hyper-realism of memos, notes and transcriptions ends and the satire begins. I expect this delicious ambiguity is deliberate, like so much else in the novel, deliberate and thematically relevant. Of the many human flaws, selfishness is perhaps most on display here, selfishness that leads to individuals taking themselves, and only themselves, terribly seriously. This does not mean they take their work as elected representatives and civil servants very seriously. Decay in thought leads to decay in language, which then leads to further decay in talk. Bursey's presents, and I swear it feels like he's recorded, for your consideration, the ins and outs of Hansard in a fictional Canadian province. The satire of human behaviour, with its levels of deception and meaning, gets robust and startlingly effective support from the novel's structure. What's really happening in a provincial legislature? How does Canadian democracy 'really' work? You can check the public records, of course. But for a better understanding, read _Verbatim: A Novel_.
With Bursey's _Verbatim: A Novel_, it gets hard to say where the hyper-realism of memos, notes and transcriptions ends and the satire begins. I expect this delicious ambiguity is deliberate, like so much else in the novel, deliberate and thematically relevant. Of the many human flaws, selfishness is perhaps most on display here, selfishness that leads to individuals taking themselves, and only themselves, terribly seriously. This does not mean they take their work as elected representatives and civil servants very seriously. Decay in thought leads to decay in language, which then leads to further decay in talk. Bursey's presents, and I swear it feels like he's recorded, for your consideration, the ins and outs of Hansard in a fictional Canadian province. The satire of human behaviour, with its levels of deception and meaning, gets robust and startlingly effective support from the novel's structure. What's really happening in a provincial legislature? How does Canadian democracy 'really' work? You can check the public records, of course. But for a better understanding, read _Verbatim: A Novel_.
the_original_shelf_monkey's review
4.0
Bursey's reproduction of speech patterns and over-the-top hyperbole of Canadian parliament filtered through the arcane editorial processes of Hansard is note-perfect (I particularly love that, as in real life Hansard transcripts, bits of random hubbub by members are reported as "Some Hon. Members: Oh! Oh!" and "Some Hon. Members: Resign! Resign!"). As the members of each party repeatedly attack and mock the other, the statements prove that Parliament is, like most institutions, hardly a step above an elementary school in pettiness, vindictiveness, wilful blindness, purposeful obtuseness, and one-upmanship. As Bursey writes it, there are big, important issues out there, but when Parliament is in session, he who shouts the loudest and longest wins. This is hardly a new idea, but Bursey's inventiveness and integrity to the style and cause of his satire breathes new life into a stale theme. The epigraph by Wyndham Lewis is instructive: "Should we describe it as Satire (merely because it does not refine the truth?) or should we call it realism?" Bursey's satire is well-nigh indistinguishable from the real thing.
Read the rest of the review here.
Read the rest of the review here.
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