Over the last couple of nights I've read "Pistache" by Sebastian Faulks, which is, according to the cover "A collection of fanciful, satirical and surprising parodies, squibs and pastiches inspired by The Write Stuff on Radio 4." It may help to know that this description is written in a whole variety of fonts and sizes, with intermittent capitalisation. You may also have realised by now that "Pistache" is a simple anagram of "Pastiche." If not, then the back cover explains that it's a combination of pastiche and piss-take. If that gets you rolling on the floor laughing, then this book is for you. As for me, it didn't, and I'm afraid it's not.
Essentially a drawn-out variation on the theme of "What if one author with a distinctive style had written another author's work?" this is the kind of clever humour that knows it's clever, that enjoys being clever, that wants to tell you every other moment just how clever it really is. So we have pieces in the style of Kingsley (and Martin) Amis, D H Lawrence, John Betjeman, Richmal Crompton and many others. And most of them are recognisable, especially since there's a helpful title on each piece, telling you who it's supposed to be. Some are amusing: Dan Brown (always an easy target) visiting the cash dispenser made me wince and smile at the same time; some are clever ("Kubla Khan" rewritten as an account of building a conservatory) and some are... well, you can see what he's getting at, but is "American Psycho" written by Jane Austen really, as the front cover quote from the Sunday Telegraph puts it, "unforgivably witty?"
If your idea of fun is to have a really clever person tell you clever jokes about cleverness, buy this book. Unfortunately I'll have to disagree (yet again) with the Telegraph: "Pistache" as a whole is, I'm afraid, forgivably unwitty.
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