Pistache

View other editions of Pistache.
View books by Sebastian Faulks.

Not quite as funny as you think it's going to be - Rated
It's strange to think of the author of Birdsong turning his hand to this sort of thing. It's a very short book of literary parodies and indeed it's difficult not to smile at Dan Brown at the cashpoint, Martin Amis's first day at Hogwarts or Kipling's 'If...' rewritten for today's journalists. The trouble is that smiling is all you do - it's not really 'laugh out loud' funny.

There has been a certain amount of precedent for this kind of spoof, from Craig Brown's regular 'Diary' column in Private Eye to John Crace's 'Digested Read' in The Guardian. Both have led to books of collections and both are as funny, or frequently funnier, than this.

Clever, certainly, but somehow not quite funny enough.

Clever, clever, sometimes too clever! - Rated
There is no doubt that Faulks is brilliant. This little collection of pastiche/piss-takes (hence the title) proves that more than ever. he takes average occurences and uses famous narrative styles/voices to match these. Ian Fleming doing James Bond in a supermarket is priceless... but the prize goes to his version of Dan Brown going to cahspoint. Hilarious and says in a more concise, witty and accurate way what thousands of newspaper critics have been trying to say about Brown for years.