I have no idea where the misconception came from that satire has to be funny. Satire can be funny on occasion, but as it is a means of criticizing society, there are going to be times that it won't be funny in the slightest. The things one person finds problematic in life, another person is going to believe devoutly - meaning there is always going to be someone who doesn't get the joke no matter how funny you make the satire.

Classic satires like George Orwell's Animal Farm, where he equated Stalinist Russia with a barn yard revolution and showed the leaders of the revolution becoming as corrupt as the usurped masters, isn't funny at all once you understand what's being depicted. Yet, for far too many people, it's become a silly cartoon to be taken at its surface value where you laugh at the antics of the funny animals.

For the modern satirist to be successful, which in my mind means getting his or her audience to question the status quo, he or she has to find a way to bring their audience to the point where they see how ridiculous things are, without their attention being diverted by the humour.

The other major difficulty facing a satirist is ensuring the object of the satire doesn't become the object of audience affection. If you start identifying with Homer Simpson or Archie Bunker, how are you going to see them as the objects of ridicule they are supposed to be? If a character is to represent an area of malaise in society, what does that say if the audience feels sympathy for him? While it could mean society is a lot worse off than the author thought, it usually means the character's creator hasn't been as honest in his depiction as necessary.

In his latest novel, Callisto, Australian author Torsten Krol has created a character who, while not necessarily unlikable, isn't going to be someone most of his readership are going to want to admit identifying with. Odell Deefus is what most people would call a few bricks short of a load, or any of the other euphemisms people might have for the genuinely stupid. If his IQ were any lower, he could be considered developmentally challenged, but not in the heartland of America, Yoder Wyoming, where Odell was raised.

As Odell is our source of all information for his little adventure in 21st century real-politic, he's not about to admit he's what a generous person would call slow. He goes out of his way to draw our attention to his great intellect by informing us he's read The Yearling sixteen times. (It won the Pulitzer Prize, so it can't be a book for dumb people.) Odell is intent on reassuring us about his intelligence because he wants us to take the story he's about to recount seriously.