In my fist book, Reginald Kensington Pelican, our hero flies about and goes about the business of being a pelican (you know, diving for food, etc.). While flying, he muses about the nature of pelican-ness, about his place in the universe, etc. Near the end of the book Reginald spends a lot more time musing about what’s beyond the horizon, about the whole of pelican-hood will go on, with or without him, etc. In other words, my first book is a metaphor (or maybe it’s an allegory, I’m never sure which) for death.
My second book isn’t quite so deep. In my second book, The Vagabond’s Guide to the Universe, the characters are, in a series of comic misadventures, always having to jump through hoops to satisfy the demands of various bureaucratic entities. In other words, my second book is not only a metaphor (or allegory) for bureaucracy, it’s specifically against bureaucracy.
Is there a word for this? As in, “The Vagabond’s Guide to the Universe is a XXXXXX against bureaucracy.”
I haven’t read the book, but this wouldn’t be metaphor OR allegory as you’ve described it. The whole book (seagull edition) is an allegory via anthropomorphization of the birds, but a character thinking about what’s going to happen after he dies isn’t a metaphor for death…it’s just thinking about death.
I agree. It’s a story. If it parodies anything, it loosely parodies the idea behind the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe’ books, but that’s only as a framework. There is much sending up of bureaucracy, but that’s not the purpose of the book. It’s just a comedy novel.
