In the recently published Oxford Book of Parodies, John Crace clocks up five entries, thus putting him just behind Craig Brown as our Greatest Living Parodist. Crace may not have quite Brown’s range, but for the last 10 years his ‘Digested Reads’ have been reason enough to buy the Guardian.
Taking a well-known novel, he gives a brief distillation of the plot while capturing — often perfectly — the tone of its author. At the same time, he jabs a sharpened elbow into their pomposities and limitations. It’s been a long time since I ventured anywhere near Arnold Bennett, but to read Crace’s spoof of Anna of the Five Towns — ‘Anna’s heart shuddered with expectant perturbation’ — is to be plunged back into a world where every puff of factory smoke comes with its own basket of verbiage.
Henry Miller may be a parodist’s dream, but Crace’s skewering of Tropic of Cancer is a thing to stand in awe of:
I am an Artist.
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