Craig Brown's 'Imaginary Friends': The Collected Parodies 2000-2004 (Private Eye)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Craig Brown Our price £9.99 New from £4.50 Used from £2.43 Pages: 240 (Hardcover) ISBN: 1901784371 Pub: Private Eye Productions Ltd. Pub date: 2004-10-18 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 249852

Reader Reviews:

Delicious satire (10/10 people found this helpful)

This is a very amusing little anthology of literary impersonations- each vignette is written in the style of the subject being lampooned. Brown is an excellent literary mimic- very funny indeed, and with a knack for probing ruthlessly at the pretensions of his subjects, be they literary heavyweights like Martin Amis and Robert Hughes, or vapid celebrities like Sara Cox and George Michael ("We've got to get this Iraq thing sorted right? We can't go around killing innocent people, regardless of their sexuality.")

Brown is also very good at targeting social snobbery- such as his subtly vicious dissection of Mary Archer ("I am the chairman of the Ethics Committee at Addenbrookes hospital, and well used to coming down hard on those who lie incompetently.") His skit on David Starkey is also brilliant, replete with patronising, reactionary asides ("Let's aim for a bit of accuracy in our history, shall we ladies?"). But what makes Brown more than just a comedian is his literary nous. His take on Martin Amis is not just a ridiculing of the author's pretensions, but also functions as a withering critique of his recent book "Koba the Dread"- ("Why pray, is it necessary to point out at this post-millenial juncture that Iosif Stalin is no mate of this 52-year-old novelist?" Why, indeed?) And likewise, the spoof of Christopher Ricks, entitled "Cliff Richard's Visions of Sin" is both a mickey-take of the author's "Dylan's Visions of Sin," as well as an accurate mockery of the excesses of academic writing.

Anyhow, there is too much wit in this little book to recount here. Reccommended to anyone with a sense of humour.

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