Charlie Brooker: 'Dawn Of The Dumb'

Screw Christmas. Let’s all worship at the altar of Charlie Brooker, the most prophetic truth doling atomic mess this nation’s ever seen. The man’s a genius for christ sake. Christ? Brooker pisses all over him. His new book, ‘Dawn of the Dumb: Dispatches From The Idiotic Frontline’, is a must for any vitriol harboring citizen tired at modern life and the media’s proliferation of stomach churning, shotgun wound inducing shit fests. Brooker tears everything apart, reveals it for what it is, and then leaves after smugly justifying every single point. This is a masterpiece of collected column inches from his contribution to the Guardian’s G2 magazine and his Screen Burn television guide commentary.

Never has reading been so free of laboriousness, from Brooker’s opening epilogue: “Thanks for buying this book. I hope you enjoy reading it more than I enjoyed writing it, because I hated every minute” he sets out the confessionary and brutally honest tone his writing continues to espouse. Whether Brooker illustrates his rancor at reality TV or his lack of penchant for British politicians like David Cameron, he never ceases to amuse and persuade his reader.

‘Dawn of the Dumb’ stylistically alternates nicely between Brooker’s illustrations of the atrocities that modern television is committing, coupled with the more personal side of his day to day trials and tribulations. His ferocious dismantling of television personalities like Ralph Little: “Pray for Stumpy Ralph”, where Brooker hypothesizes that Little is the most famous celebrity in the world before a triumvirate of tragedies befalls him and causes him to become a single lip that: “plays a small pink slug that befriends Dakota Fanning” is so scathing that you can feel the heat rising from the page.

However, it would be justly unfair to say the work is one prolonged assault on the jugular of popular culture; there are indeed moments where we see Brooker’s own real concerns that bring a sense of candidness to his fuming diatribes. Indeed the recounting of his many failed relationships that he places inside ferocious attacks consequently tickles our sympathies and leads us to forgive his harshest of sentiments. That, and the fact that he is right about everything 100% of the time. All we can do is nod in agreement and chuckle sadistically. I wish I had wrote this. It is a bible for anyone pissed off at the world but not sure why.

Published on 1st November 2007 by Faber & Faber.

Written by William Peach.