A humorous summation of one of the craziest years in recent memory.
They say that humour is a great antidote to sorrow. Laughing about a terrible situation is a coping mechanism that we human beings have imbedded in our DNA. When the history books are written about the events of 2020, doubtless the humour created by it will be explored. Dominic Knight’s timely dictionary is a perfect snapshot of on-topic humour that could be used to demonstrate how human beings laughed their way out of lockdown.
Subtitled “The definitive guide to the year the Earth turned to s**t”, this book outlines many of the people, events, cities and animals that defined our year in one way or another. Knight is no slouch when it comes to writing comedy, having helped found the comedy group The Chasers as well as writing numerous columns for various newspapers and writing four previous comedic novels. This book very much plays to his audience of left-wing supporters. If you are a fan of pretty much any conservative party, policy, or politician (especially Messers Morrison, Johnson and, especially, Trump) then you will find little to laugh at in these pages.
Knight takes predictable swipes at Melbourne (‘Many residents broke the rules, frequently for the baffling purpose of buying KFC’), South Australia (‘Protecting South Australia from Covid-19 and the rest of the country from South Australians’), and ridiculous TikTok trends amongst many others, as well as pointing and laughing at those things in the news which have made us scratch our head and wonder “how did we come to this?”
There are entries about toilet paper and hand sanitizer, as well as several entries about the virus itself, along with defunding police and JobSeeker. After a while the jokes all seem to blend into one another and the reader can become numb to the humorous effect it strives to achieve. This may serve as a warning not to read the book from cover to cover, but rather to pick and choose your entries.
There is no doubt that Knight has a keen eye for the silliness of humanity (as all good comedians do) and it is hard to blame him for taking the opportunity to write his thoughts down. He is also a gifted writer with a finely-tuned comedic turn of phrase. For many people, this will be a welcome tonic from the overt seriousness of the year and a fun read, which is something we all need after this year.
Not every joke lands on target but the ones that do are comedic gold. A great stocking-stuffer for the person in your life who badly needs a laugh.
Reviewed by Rodney Hrvatin
Twitter: @Wagnerfan74
Distributed by: Allen and Unwin
Released: November 2020
RRP: $29.99
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