What do You think about Thank You For Smoking (2006)?
When it comes to naming our best contemporary satirists, the default response usually (and accurately) settles on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The Onion, too, and certainly anything Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It; In the Loop; Veep) creates. But I never hear Christopher Buckley's name mentioned, which is a shame. He's made a career out of skewering various American power structures – the stock market, the justice system, the State Department, etc. – and I'm glad that I finally got around to reading Thank You for Smoking,, which has to be his best work to date.Here, Buckley sets himself the herculean task of turning Nick Naylor, the tobacco industry's chief spokesman, into a sympathetic character. No easy feat when Naylor regularly appears on Oprah and Larry King Live to tout the health benefits of smoking and then follows it up by meeting his counterparts in the alcohol and firearms lobbies for dinner – an unofficial social club which they've named "The Mod Squad" (short for Merchants of Death).But somehow Buckley manages to make Naylor a character worth rooting for. He accomplishes part of this by making Naylor smart and funny and sort of "aw, shucks" about his own duplicity – a genial fellow who can't help but make up statistics about how nicotine slows the onset of Parkinson's. But the bigger part is that he makes Naylor a victim – first of his boss (who's an even bigger asshole than Nick), then of a kidnapper, then of the FBI who suspect Nick in his own abduction. Because Nick seems like such a decent guy, who can't help but feel sorry for all the stuff he's going through, even while he's paying off a celebrity lung cancer victim to stop speaking out against the tobacco industry (a thinly-veiled Marlboro Man, who actually did die of lung cancer in 1992).The whole thing is pitch-black and very, very funny. Take this advice, which Nick gives his 12-year-old son:'"The important thing is...is to feel tired at the end of the day.' Aristotle might not have constructed an entire philosophy on it, but it would do. True, Hitler and Stalin had probably felt tired at the end of their days. But theirs would not have been a good tired."If acidic commentary is your thing and you don't know Buckley's work, start here and don't look back.
—Rob
Smokin'! One of the funniest books I've read in a long time.I saw this on a library shelf and remembered how much I'd enjoyed the film a few years ago. The book is definitely worth reading too.Very dark humour, it's the sort of funny that might make you spit out your tea. Who would have thought that lung cancer, gun death and fetal alcohol syndrome could be so hilarious...Nick Naylor is Big Tobacco's spokesman - the man whose job it is to make them look good, to suck up criticism and spin it into a positive. He's very good at his job. After work, he relaxes with his two associates - spokespersons for the Alcohol industries and Gun Lobbies respectively. Called the Mod Squad (Merchants of Death), they support each other as much as comparing the number of deaths their employers are responsible for on an annual basis.If you are easily offended, this may not be for you. This is completely crazy - we are rooting for a man trying to get teenagers to start smoking! The whole book manages to mock a whole host of industries and employers. One of my favourite moments involved the answerphone message of the Washington Post:"If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one...If you are a confidential White House source and are calling to alert your reporter that the President is furious over leaks and has ordered a review of all outgoing calls...press five."Watching Nick at work, on TV and in the media is at once outrageous and brilliant. His verbal dexterity is admirable, even if few people reading this will agree with his arguments. The story takes a few twists and turns, involving an unidentified person gunning for Nick, a threat on his life, some suspicious FBI agents and an attempt to get cigarette smoking into a major Hollywood film. If you enjoy slightly tasteless but incredibly witty reads involving morally suspect men - look no further. Just brilliant.
—Katy Noyes
Membaca buku ini membuat saya tiba-tiba menjadi aktivis anti-rokok garis keras. Buku ini menceritakan tentang Juru Bicara sebuah perusahaan rokok, bernama Nick Naylor. Alurnya yang cukup jelas mengantarkan kita tentang lika-liku seorang Amerika Sejati yang bebas, pekerja keras, dan cerdas. Jika anda seorang pecinta novel detektif anda akan menyukai cara-cara perseteruan baik verbal dan fisik yang disajikan. Sebagai media-darling, Nick Naylor sukses menggembosi lawan-lawannya dalam sejumlah talkshow terkemuka di Amerika.Tetapi di balik itu semua, Nick harus merelakan kehidupan pribadinya porak poranda, bahkan tubuhnya menjadi tumbal bagi karirnya. Dengan akhir yang sangat Hollywood, Nick akhirnya berhasil membalaskan dendamnya pada musuhnya. Dibumbui percintaan yang cukup tertebak alurnya, novel ini mengingatkan kita pada cerita-cerita James Bond.
—Yolanda Vera
