Edgy satires often achieve greatness proportional to the power of the thing they satirize. For example, a novel satirizing Communist Russia in the 1920s, such as Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog, would have lost much of its edge had it been written in, say, 1987, during the final years of Communism. But since it was written in 1925, when Communism was quite vigorous, Bulgakov got cancelled, and the book had to wait until 1987 to see the light of day. (more…)
Counter-Currents