I Am America is best read with your ears
Colbert proves audio books should be left to the comedians
OTTAWA (CUP) -- I had the option of buying either the novel or audio book of Stephen Colbert's “I Am America (And So Can You!).” Although the novel would have been a hilarious read, I figured having the entire book read aloud to me by Colbert himself would be a hell of a lot more fun.
The truth is, it was.
“I Am America” was written by Colbert as a satirical autobiography and a thesis of sorts on the state of contemporary America. It showcases — through suspiciously well-detailed life lessons — the issues that are at hand in the United States and how to deal with them all to bring Good Ol' America right back to the top.
The novel concludes with “The Future,” wherein Colbert directs his thoughts to future inhabitants of America, but also to the world at large, leaving detailed instructions based on possible future scenarios. In one, he even generously offers to free the enslaved humans from their robotic overlords by overloading their cybernetic processors with his genius.
The novel is really a lampooning of American life, culture, history and politics, packaged in Colbert-like packets of truthiness. It satirizes all aspects of the world today, showing the absurdity of “the system” through Colbert's right-wing character.
His style of comedy is to embody the caricature of the caustic, right-wing bully and showcase the ludicrousness of the flagrantly ignorant things they, along with 90 per cent of right-wing media, tend to spew out as “intelligent” observations of America. In “I Am America,” Colbert does it all to a tee. Which is also, by a twist of fate, his middle initial. Coincidence?
Probably.
There are a few advantages to buying the regular book over listening to Colbert's sexy voice. Hilarious pictures of him preface every chapter, illustrating the theme behind each section. There are also random pictures of people Colbert has helped become “American.”
It features Red Margin Notes that could basically equal “The Word” segments from “The Colbert Report,” and those are always good. Lastly, the book comes with some nifty extras, like a page of stickers reading: “The Stephen T. Colbert Award for The Literary Excellence” (of which his book was the first recipient), as well as a transcript of the infamous 2006 Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner speech that Colbert gave, honouring George W. Bush's “greatest achievements”.
The advantage the audio version has over the book is a great lineup of cameos, including Amy Sedaris, Jon Stewart, and Paul Dinello. Plus, would you rather “read” a “book” filled with “facts”, or have Colbert “feel” things to you for a solid 3.5 hours?
A final little tidbit for diehard Colbert fans: when he's talking about “Old People” at the beginning of Chapter 2, if you listen really carefully after Colbert says, “They don't believe in buying multiple collector's copies, no matter what rare, bizarre coded message appears in them”, some gibberish follows. Listen to the narration of this garbled quote backwards.
OTTAWA (CUP) -- I had the option of buying either the novel or audio book of Stephen Colbert's “I Am America (And So Can You!).” Although the novel would have been a hilarious read, I figured having the entire book read aloud to me by Colbert himself would be a hell of a lot more fun.
The truth is, it was.
“I Am America” was written by Colbert as a satirical autobiography and a thesis of sorts on the state of contemporary America. It showcases — through suspiciously well-detailed life lessons — the issues that are at hand in the United States and how to deal with them all to bring Good Ol' America right back to the top.
The novel concludes with “The Future,” wherein Colbert directs his thoughts to future inhabitants of America, but also to the world at large, leaving detailed instructions based on possible future scenarios. In one, he even generously offers to free the enslaved humans from their robotic overlords by overloading their cybernetic processors with his genius.
The novel is really a lampooning of American life, culture, history and politics, packaged in Colbert-like packets of truthiness. It satirizes all aspects of the world today, showing the absurdity of “the system” through Colbert's right-wing character.
His style of comedy is to embody the caricature of the caustic, right-wing bully and showcase the ludicrousness of the flagrantly ignorant things they, along with 90 per cent of right-wing media, tend to spew out as “intelligent” observations of America. In “I Am America,” Colbert does it all to a tee. Which is also, by a twist of fate, his middle initial. Coincidence?
Probably.
There are a few advantages to buying the regular book over listening to Colbert's sexy voice. Hilarious pictures of him preface every chapter, illustrating the theme behind each section. There are also random pictures of people Colbert has helped become “American.”
It features Red Margin Notes that could basically equal “The Word” segments from “The Colbert Report,” and those are always good. Lastly, the book comes with some nifty extras, like a page of stickers reading: “The Stephen T. Colbert Award for The Literary Excellence” (of which his book was the first recipient), as well as a transcript of the infamous 2006 Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner speech that Colbert gave, honouring George W. Bush's “greatest achievements”.
The advantage the audio version has over the book is a great lineup of cameos, including Amy Sedaris, Jon Stewart, and Paul Dinello. Plus, would you rather “read” a “book” filled with “facts”, or have Colbert “feel” things to you for a solid 3.5 hours?
A final little tidbit for diehard Colbert fans: when he's talking about “Old People” at the beginning of Chapter 2, if you listen really carefully after Colbert says, “They don't believe in buying multiple collector's copies, no matter what rare, bizarre coded message appears in them”, some gibberish follows. Listen to the narration of this garbled quote backwards.
