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A review by shanehawk
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il by Michael Malice
4.0
Dear Reader,
Comedy gets us through tough times. It’s what we turn to in order to cope. This is a reason why it’s used in the mundane subject of politics. There’s nothing funny about north Korea or its millions of slaves under the Kim Jong Un regime. To make us grasp the concept of a modern day holocaust Malice employs irony and comedy. This serves as an aid to douse nasty medicine in tasty sugar before administering. Thanks to this mixture of comedy and tragedy his readers gain a fruitful understanding of this country’s history and how it came to be one of the largest and most ignored humanitarian crises of our lifetime. To every laugh there’s a tinge of heartbreak.
Malice read numerous books on the subject of north Korea and its leaders from both the Western canon and north Korea’s own propaganda. He mixes historical fact with propaganda from both camps to express Kim Jong Il’s life.
This is a book I highly recommend to anyone especially those who have laughed at north Korea in the past.
I’ll leave you with the first sentence of this great book:
“I remember the day that I was born perfectly.”*
*Notice how Malice doesn’t add a comma after the word “born?” It’s intentional and is foreshadowing for the intense hubris to come later from the novel. Hope you enjoy it.
Comedy gets us through tough times. It’s what we turn to in order to cope. This is a reason why it’s used in the mundane subject of politics. There’s nothing funny about north Korea or its millions of slaves under the Kim Jong Un regime. To make us grasp the concept of a modern day holocaust Malice employs irony and comedy. This serves as an aid to douse nasty medicine in tasty sugar before administering. Thanks to this mixture of comedy and tragedy his readers gain a fruitful understanding of this country’s history and how it came to be one of the largest and most ignored humanitarian crises of our lifetime. To every laugh there’s a tinge of heartbreak.
Malice read numerous books on the subject of north Korea and its leaders from both the Western canon and north Korea’s own propaganda. He mixes historical fact with propaganda from both camps to express Kim Jong Il’s life.
This is a book I highly recommend to anyone especially those who have laughed at north Korea in the past.
I’ll leave you with the first sentence of this great book:
“I remember the day that I was born perfectly.”*
*Notice how Malice doesn’t add a comma after the word “born?” It’s intentional and is foreshadowing for the intense hubris to come later from the novel. Hope you enjoy it.