Saturday, October 1, 2016

How to Talk to Your Cat about Gun Safety, by Zachary Auburn

Imagine a collection of pamphlets covering a number of social and religious issues, published by a right wing political or religious organization.  Now imagine such pamphlets written as a parody featuring cats.  Zachary Auburn has done it.  Under the auspices of the American Association of Patriots, which was formed by Douglas Auburn "in response to an illegal raid by the county sheriff of his home so as to rob him of the thirty-four cats he kept for protection."

Auburn's AAP covers hot to talk to your cat about gun safety, evolution, abstinence, online safety, drugs, puberty, post-apocalyptic survival, and satanism.  I generally have a good sense of humor, and although I am conservative, can get a good laugh at conservatives.  But I didn't find Auburn's book all that funny.  He has a few good lines, like addressing young cats' addiction to catnip, and cats "using their owners' credit cards without their permission, attempting to buy cans of illegally caught bluefin tuna."

I didn't like his completely unsubtle criticism of conservative views, especially his anti-Christian tone.  For this sort of humor to be funny, it should be done with a bit more subtlety and good nature.  Maybe I'm misreading him, but the parody seemed to heavy-handed.  Even more than that, Auburn's feline word plays were cute at first, but got really annoying.  (E.g., impurrative, "pawse for a meowment," "Don't procatstinate," "Purrotestant, Catholic, or a Mewslim," and on ad nauseum.)

It's sort of a funny book, but the jokes get old and the humor was not all that humorous.  It's litter box reading at best.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

No comments:

Post a Comment