‘There’s a Lot to Be Said for Making People Laugh’: The Grotesque as Political Subversion in Jonathan Coe’s Fiction

Abstract

Jonathan Coe’s choice of the comic in his novels becomes a political statement that derives its force from the destabilising power that humour can exert over the representation of reality and dominant narratives. I will argue that his comic approach is indebted to transgressive forms of humour ranging from satire to the absurd, and drawing on elements of defamiliarisation and distancing to highlight reflexivity. Coe plays the contradictions of humour against themselves, providing entertainment, while simultaneously enhancing the grotesque in order to counter any potential numbing effect. This paper will analyse a selection of grotesque moments in Coe’s novels in his attempt to present a distorted and deformed reality which becomes itself the standard of normalcy. The political then would emerge from acknowledging that the comic grotesque becomes the norm rather than the exception, allowing for an in-between space of social critique.

Keywords

• Jonathan Coe
• grotesque
• comedy
• carnival
• Bakhtin
• ideology