Fall Book Reviews

Dispatches From the Tenth Circle: The Best of the Onion

"I refused to laugh at them, for I was jealous of anybody who was funnier than I," one character says of another's jokes and parodies in Robertson Davies' Fifth Business. Do you ever feel that way when reading the Onion? I do. Of course, I laugh anyway. There's a reason the Onion -- the irreverent weekly newspaper parody based in Madison, Wis. -- has a 350,000 newsstand circulation and is one of the most popular Web sites on the planet, not to mention the subject of at least five e-mail forwards a week and, with its "Holy Fucking Shit!" coverage, a haven in times of constant sorrow. They thought of it, and then they printed it, whereas we think of it a day or two after the fact and say "damn," if we think of it at all. The third of the Onion's paperback trilogy (1999's Our Dumb Century, 2000's The Onion's Finest News Reporting), discussing Dispatches From the Tenth Circle is like discussing a good mystery: To reveal anything from its pages is to reveal too much, and you don't need me to tell you it's worth it. However, on the occasion of the Onion's 14th year, I'll give you this: "Elton John Wows Mother Teresa Funeral Crowd With 'The Bitch Is Back.'" It gets better. Great for bathrooms and "get-togethers."