A satirical and timeless dictionary that takes a series of swipes at political and religious double meanings among many other things. The dictionary started as a minor newspaper column aside, before Bierce made it into a complete short book in its own right. Entries are frequently hilarious.
Examples, here given
in paraphrasing, include - A - Appeal, another shot at the dice, Alligator
being an American crocodile, and therefore better than any other kind,
Ambidextrous means being able to pick pockets to the left or right of the
victim,
etc. The tone of the book is highly
cynical, bitter and tongue in cheek.
The devilment is roguish wit rather
than any form of Satanism. He
notes sardonically that the ancient
Greek academies taught morals and
philosophy, while modern university
academies mainly teach football.
Sometimes Bierce can be scurrilous towards religion and God, though, as
in his definition of Deluge where he sees the Biblical flood as an early
failed experiment in baptism where the sinners were washed away with
their sins by accident.
Some definitions are quick one-line
jokes, while others receive short
poems and witty, sometimes genuine
quotations in their support. Under
J we learn that Jesters lost their
status as royal fools when people
realized that their governing kings and
politicians were foolish
enough themselves without needing to
hire a jester.
My favourite definition is that of the
Tsetse Fly as a cure for
insomnia, in that it induces sleeping
sickness or death, though Bierce
sees this as a textbook definition of
American novelists too.
Some of his definitions carry lovely
anecdotes. On serials, newspaper
stories told over several issues,
Bierce relates the sad tale of James
F Bowman, who, with an un-named
co-writer, contrived to keep a story
going in perpetuity, as a lifetime
income maker, only to fall out with his friend who killed off all the
characters on him in a shipwreck final instalment. A tomb is seen as the final
resting place for the dead but only until
archaeologists decide to dig us up and
put us in museums instead.
The letter X gets only one entry,
dismissing it as a useless letter
used best in abridgements, such as
reducing Christmas to Xmas, etc.
He attacks Masonic bodies with lists of made up secret
societies, and the
collection of religious reliquaries are
scathingly lampooned with
reference to feathers from the cockerel
that crowed to Peter on the
day of Christ's crucifixion.
The book is as funny and thoughtful now
as when it was written.
Full text of the book begins at http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?A
Arthur Chappell
LINK TO THIS PAGE – http://arthurchappell.me.uk/book.review-ambrose.bierce-the.devils.dictionary.htm
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