Wednesday, October 4, 2017

A Short List Of The Best Well Written Dark Comedy Novel

By Robert Peterson


Black comedy is a concept created by entertainers during the Surrealist movement back in the mid thirties. This is often regarded as a classic comical style that focuses on various grim topics. However, instead of focusing on its dark aspects, the one who delivers the jokes makes light of it or focuses on its humor. Majority of the topics used here are considered taboo by society, which makes it a somewhat unconventional type of humor to have.

Nowadays, this style of comedy is still being used by many artists and performers whose names have become intertwined by the genre. This had led to the creation of paintings, sculptures, songs, movies, and even books. To expand more on the latter, below is a short list of the best well written Dark Comedy Novel.

Haunted is a book by Chuck Palahniuk, an author known for his dark humor and the use of shock value to surprise readers with the content of this works. A vast majority of his works have been translated to movies, which went on to win awards. However, one of his most disturbing works yet is this one, which centers on a group of characters who willingly submit themselves to staying in one house to write something worth publishing, but are unaware of the dangers that each member brings.

Daniel Handler is another author to use this format, evident in his book titled The Basic Eight. The reader becomes engrossed reading the musings and thoughts of a high school kid named Flannery, who writes all these in a diary format. The diary contains clever quips and musings on the educational system, topics on Satanism, and the prominence of talk shows portrayed by the media. At the last few pages, Flannery becomes involved in a school interpretation of Othello, during which she compares herself to characters included in it.

The Death of Bunny Munro was created by Nick Cave, who first rose to fame as a vocalist in an alternative rock band. The titular character is Bunny, a man who is an alcoholic and frequently involves himself with various strange women, following the suicide of his wife. As a means to support himself and his son, he takes up a job that requires him to sell beautification products as a door salesman. As he does this, he is unaware of a serial killer who is trailing him close behind.

Another Palahniuk title that makes this list is Choke, which has been converted into a major movie shown in theatres a few years ago. The story follows Victor, a man addicted to intercourse and becomes increasingly worried and stressed. This stress comes from the worry of where to find money to support his frail mother, who is admitted into a nursing home. By working in a colonial museum and tricking people into giving donations, he manages to so and also create his dream home in this process.

One hundred and One Uses for a Dead Cat was first published in the late forties and was a collection of comics that continued into two thousand eleven. It was written by Simon Bond and each panel ended with his tag line, which revolves around a cat. The cats are drawn in a macabre fashion, some of them are dead while others are doing activities that humans would normally do.

The Sirens of Titan is both a black comedy and science fiction work, authored by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the events that took place during the Martian invasion on Earth, where a group of citizens ponder on a number of topics. This generally included the presence of an ominous god, free will, and a question that haunts them all, what exactly is their purpose in their seemingly mortal existence.

Bret Easton Ellis wrote The Rules of Attraction, which is falls under the satire category. Its main focus is a group of college students who are influenced by their bohemian lifestyles to regularly engage in sexual activities and drugs. They attend an art college, where three main characters subsequently develop a love triangle between themselves. In early two thousands, it was turned into a full length film.




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