Book Review: I am America (And So Can You!)

Though I am an avid reader, I usually don't go in for humorous books. For example, while I thought they were clever at times, I never found Al Franken's books to be particularly humorous. Nor did I find Jon Stewart's America: The Book to be particularly funny. Stephen Colbert's new book, I Am America (And So Can You) is an exception. It was hilarious.

Colbert, who went from being a correspondent on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to having his own show, The Colbert Report, is known for his brilliant parodies of conservative pundits. The character he portrays on The Colbert Report is an obnoxious and opinionated jerk. That jerk, despite the fact that he is admittedly "no fan of books," wrote a book in order to, as he says, "...impregnate this country with my mind."

Excellent television humor doesn't always translate into excellent humor in books. Luckily, it translates wonderfully in this book. Colbert's television parodies of conservative pundits might actually be even better in book form.

Colbert's humor isn't funny because it is outrageous or weird. His humorous parodies are funny because they are so close to the mark. Just look at these quotes from his book which I put alongside quotes from conservative pundits Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. Colbert: "After criminals and babies, seniors are the most coddled segment of society." Coulter: "There are the 39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security. The greatest generation rewarded itself with a pretty big meal." Colbert: "Instead of getting rich and paying their own way, they'd rather go on welfare, and the liberals are only too happy to give it to them." O'Reilly: "... irresponsible and lazy ... Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard."

While there are gems of humor throughout the whole book, there are a few chapters which were particularly strong. The best was his chapter on the family. In the first half of the chapter Colbert waxes poetic about the ideal American family while viciously attacking non-conformists. For example: "I don't care if it's CEO of a major corporation or three hours a week as a teacher's aide, if you work outside the home, you might as well bring coconut arsenic squares to the school bake sale." If you haven't figured it out already, that quote came from a section of the chapter with the heading "The Mother." In the second half of the chapter, Colbert gives family advice, culminating in a section entitled "Colbert Family Counseling."

Another excellent chapter was the one entitled "Animals." In this chapter, Colbert obsesses about the "threat" that animals pose to humanity. He even includes a pitch for a movie about how animals, aided and abetted by liberals, take over the United States, renaming it "The United Nests, Burrows, Dens, and Hives of America."

A third particular funny section was actually more of an appendix than a chapter. Last year, Colbert performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Staying in character, he parodied President George W. Bush's supporters. He did this in front of the President and First Lady. The transcript of the speech is included as an appendix.

My final favorite chapter was entitled "Class War." Though Colbert writes that he wanted to entitle it "Combat of the Class Commandos: The Coming Cashpocalypse." In this chapter, Colbert parodies the conservatives who say that anybody who works hard enough can make it into the American upper class while mimicking their attacks on the impoverished.

As excellent as I Am America (And So Can You) is, it does have some flaws. As I mentioned above, when Colbert tries to depart from his parodying and instead tries to use outrageous or weird humor, he is rarely funny and often comes across as rather corny.

Unfortunately there are a couple of times in this book when he does try to use weird offbeat humor, like when he includes a page of stickers that he suggests his readers put on their favorite books .The stickers say "The Stephen T. Colbert Award For The Literary Excellence."

There are also several inexplicably missed opportunities. I was very disappointed that Colbert didn't parody conservative views on Iraq and the War on Terror.

For example he could have written a chapter on how liberals who think that we should respect human rights in the conflict are helping the terrorists.

Another strange omission was any mention of the issue of abortion. Whatever your stance on the issue, it is impossible to deny that it is a widely and often discussed topic among pundits and politicos of both the right and the left.

If it wasn't so completely uncharacteristic for him to do so, I would say that Colbert ignored the issue out of desire not to offend.

Another missed opportunity is that he didn't dwell on the conservative view of separation of church and state. This issue could have provided plenty of fodder for humorous exploration.

Colbert's humor is very much like grapeshot: it goes everywhere and a piece of it is bound to hit everybody that comes across its path. In other words even a conservative, at least ones willing to laugh at themselves, would find something funny in this book. I heartily recommend it.