Trumpeterville: A meh and blah sandwich with pickles

What a confused mess our world is in. Daily, we are inundated with examples of where we as a Human race can improve ourselves. These examples really make themselves known when world leaders seem to be comparing their delusions and Despotism. 

As it is a highly efficient tool in political commentary, Satire is a strong component in the deluge of Trump-centric books published since the 2016 election. Satire is not only efficient, it is effective; it gives extra power to ideas and concepts, while using the most minimalist of approaches. Occams Razor in action.

With that stated, this book is loosely satirical. It took reality, very minorly modified it, and slapped the label onto it. In actuality it renamed the individual parties and allowed real life to lampoon itself.

I expected more effort.

• Trumpeterville (Dean Gessie)
• 46 pages
• Anaphora Literary Press
• ISBN-10: 1681143798
• ISBN-13: 978-1681143798

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I want to support things that are anti-Trump, but Trumpeterville seemed to go against the grain of binary political systems, attempting to snark both ends of the spectrum.

Normally I would have read part of a book, found I disliked it, then set it down before forming enough opinion review it. Unfortunately for Trumpeterville, being only forty-six pages, it left me with no wiggle room. Before I could blink, it was over.

Trumpeterville touts itself as a  satirical animal allegory, and well, it did have animals.. Trump has been replaced by a goose named Trumpeter, Obama replaced with a Black Knob goose named President Lulu, Clinton has been nicknamed ‘Madam Secretary’ referring to another bird. The Beavers also play pivotal roles. It was all dairly juvenile and lackluster.

‘Make Swanville Great Again’.. 

The funny thing about this book is that it holds a solid timeline against actual political activity in the real world; it is a mini primer of current events that could be easily cleansed of any fictitious elements allowing it to be used in a non-fiction setting. It is not surprising that this is one of it’s problem points, making it reasonably useless. If you can use the search and replace of an average word processor to easily remove fiction from fact, you most likely had a failing in your plot process. The signature items of Satire are missing (humor, exaggeration, etc), save the initially clever correlation of some word replacements. Likewise, it fails on the animal allegory front because there is nothing hidden- the copy/paste nature of the presentation makes deeper meaning elusive.

Was it a bad book? No.. It was not really a book at all. It was a clever idea a smart somebody probably thought up over a glass of wine in jest, which culminated in a soggy and heavy handed mess.

See the text from the opening of chapter 2 as a solid example:

The new president’s inauguration was not uncontroversial. Many swans chose not to attend. Certainly, migratory birds kept their distance. Of course, the majority of Trumpeter’s own class did not immediately embrace his victory. On the  campaign trail, the new president had used socialist rhetoric to such an extent that the wealthiest of Swanville feared that he would actually aid and abet the proletariat, curtail the property manipulations of the rich and, speaking of their political representatives, kick them out of the Swamp, where vegetation and protein were best. Of course, President Lulu and Madam Secretary had used the exact same rhetoric but they had a proven record of pulling swan legs left, right and center. No one believed a word they said.

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Disclosure:

This book was provided for review purposes by the author or publisher. I have no horses in the stable for you to ride to market. They have all rolled their eyes in utter dismay and fallen subject to temporary muscle strain and subsequent blindness.