RECKONINGS: Charles Rammelkamp considers a collection of witheringly satirical essays by Thomas Farber
Reckonings
Thomas Farber
El León Literary Arts, 2026
$20.00, 82 pages
ISBN: 979-8-9873718-7-9
Illustrated with almost two dozen horrific images by such artists as William Blake and Hieronymus Bosch – the circa 1413 painting by Lieven van den Clite, The Last Judgment, is a particularly eye-popping depiction of a hellscape – Thomas Farber’s withering satirical assessment of Donald J. Trump and the MAGA movement in this collection of essays (‘petulant, querulous. Mercurial, impulsive. Winging it. Denigrating, disparaging. Vengeful.’) is heartfelt and accurate. From his analysis of Trump’s Obama Derangement Syndrome – ‘DJT’s fear of feeling inferior. Of being inferior. Unable to acknowledge his betters. Obama: not perfect, but a Black guy in America with academic achievement, verbal wit, grace. Slim, trim. Family man. Writes his own books.’ – to his assessment of the first months of Trump’s second term – ‘Whirlwind; shit-storm. DJT centerstage, saturating the media, all-seen. Conflict, disorder, slop. Countless “emergency” executive orders and directives. Caprice, whim. Dismantling institutions, norms. Experts purged, media sued, universities intimidated, courts treated with contempt. Climate of fear…’ – Farber skewers the “Bullshitter-in-chief” with razor-sharp wit.
Indeed, citing the great satirist Jonathan Swift numerous times, Farber telegraphs exactly what he is up to here: his contempt floweth over! In essay after essay he describes Trump’s gluttony, depravity, self-love, resentment, martyrdom (always the victim. How many times have we heard him bleat the words “witch hunt”?). When he didn’t get the Nobel Prize, Trump whined, “I’m just saying that there’s a lot of unfairness in this world.”
Farber cites a wealth of literary precedents to pinpoint Trump, including Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch in which a dictator is promoted to “general of the universe” to give him a rank higher than death. Think of Trump’s mania for naming things after himself. Isn’t it wearying? Is this some bid for immortality? Farber cites Joseph Conrad, Dante Alighieri, H.L. Mencken, Julian Barnes, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, even Seth Meyers’ comment at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner about Trump running for president: ‘I thought he was running as a joke.’ In more than one place Farber makes fun of Trump’s appearance: ‘show off comb-over, bronzer, foundation, concealer, hair dye, high-lift shoes…’
Farber also skewers Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, the architect of the regime’s cruel deportation policy, Kelly Anne Conway and her “alternative facts,” the stooge press secretary Leavitt, Hawley, Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and the ‘lickspittles Rubio, Bondi, Noem, Gabbard.’
But at 81, Thomas Farber is also concerned about death and legacy in general. He cites two great epiphanies he had entering his ninth decade: 1) No one chooses to be born, and 2) No one can help being what they are. While these “epiphanies” are also clichés, they zero in on these existential truths. Perhaps the author feels their truth more keenly as he ages. Reckonings, indeed, is ‘Being called to account after death.’
And so he writes, mocking Trump: ‘Manichean universe. Winners and losers (“gutless losers,” “total losers,” “stone cold losers”). Zero sum: winner takes all. But…what of a world without losers? Without winners? No DJT?’ And since every one of us is going to die, ‘I imagined posthumous glory-hound DJT lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Publicly decomposing, still star of the show as Fox News records him rotting 24/7….’ And since this is the grift-gluttonous MAGA we’re talking about, ‘Also getting richer from the sale of MAGA-treasured relics — teeth, implanted hair, toenails, skeleton. And the priceless genitals? Nothing like ’em since the Holy Prepuce, Christ’s elusive foreskin.’
Farber cites Mussolini’s fate – captured by partisans at the end of World War II, executed by gunshot, hung upside down in a public square. Is this Trump’s fate? And then there was Napoleon – defeated at Waterloo in 1815, exiled to the remote island of St. Helena. ‘Accompanied by members of his retinue, from whom he continued to require imperial etiquette, increasingly obese, Napoleon lived another six years under the control of British soldiers.’
Farber asks, ‘Did DJT never read poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)? Never had to memorize “Ozymandias” while at military academy? No intimation of oblivion, that second death?’ He cites Philip Larkin:
It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavor
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here.
The dazzling if grim artwork that accompanies Farber’s mini-essays cannot be over-emphasized. They complement and deepen the message of corruption and a sort of karmic punishment that awaits evildoers. Bosch’s paintings in Reckonings include The resurrection of the dead and doomed led into Hell, several panels from The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and The Last Judgement. All depict suffering souls, naked, bound, tortured, pierced with arrows, skeletal. The other paintings, by the Renaissance artists, Lieven van den Clite, Lucas Cranach the elder and Ian Mandijn, are similarly gruesome, not to mention the Blake watercolor, The Simoniac Pope, inspired by Canto XIX of The Inferno, depicting Pope Nicholas III being cast headfirst into a flaming pit, the soles of his feet on fire.
Thomas Farber’s Reckonings is both a brilliant satirical take on a would-be tyrant and a reminder that death awaits us all.
Feb 11 2026
RECKONINGS
RECKONINGS: Charles Rammelkamp considers a collection of witheringly satirical essays by Thomas Farber
Reckonings
Thomas Farber
El León Literary Arts, 2026
$20.00, 82 pages
ISBN: 979-8-9873718-7-9
Illustrated with almost two dozen horrific images by such artists as William Blake and Hieronymus Bosch – the circa 1413 painting by Lieven van den Clite, The Last Judgment, is a particularly eye-popping depiction of a hellscape – Thomas Farber’s withering satirical assessment of Donald J. Trump and the MAGA movement in this collection of essays (‘petulant, querulous. Mercurial, impulsive. Winging it. Denigrating, disparaging. Vengeful.’) is heartfelt and accurate. From his analysis of Trump’s Obama Derangement Syndrome – ‘DJT’s fear of feeling inferior. Of being inferior. Unable to acknowledge his betters. Obama: not perfect, but a Black guy in America with academic achievement, verbal wit, grace. Slim, trim. Family man. Writes his own books.’ – to his assessment of the first months of Trump’s second term – ‘Whirlwind; shit-storm. DJT centerstage, saturating the media, all-seen. Conflict, disorder, slop. Countless “emergency” executive orders and directives. Caprice, whim. Dismantling institutions, norms. Experts purged, media sued, universities intimidated, courts treated with contempt. Climate of fear…’ – Farber skewers the “Bullshitter-in-chief” with razor-sharp wit.
Indeed, citing the great satirist Jonathan Swift numerous times, Farber telegraphs exactly what he is up to here: his contempt floweth over! In essay after essay he describes Trump’s gluttony, depravity, self-love, resentment, martyrdom (always the victim. How many times have we heard him bleat the words “witch hunt”?). When he didn’t get the Nobel Prize, Trump whined, “I’m just saying that there’s a lot of unfairness in this world.”
Farber cites a wealth of literary precedents to pinpoint Trump, including Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch in which a dictator is promoted to “general of the universe” to give him a rank higher than death. Think of Trump’s mania for naming things after himself. Isn’t it wearying? Is this some bid for immortality? Farber cites Joseph Conrad, Dante Alighieri, H.L. Mencken, Julian Barnes, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, even Seth Meyers’ comment at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner about Trump running for president: ‘I thought he was running as a joke.’ In more than one place Farber makes fun of Trump’s appearance: ‘show off comb-over, bronzer, foundation, concealer, hair dye, high-lift shoes…’
Farber also skewers Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, the architect of the regime’s cruel deportation policy, Kelly Anne Conway and her “alternative facts,” the stooge press secretary Leavitt, Hawley, Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and the ‘lickspittles Rubio, Bondi, Noem, Gabbard.’
But at 81, Thomas Farber is also concerned about death and legacy in general. He cites two great epiphanies he had entering his ninth decade: 1) No one chooses to be born, and 2) No one can help being what they are. While these “epiphanies” are also clichés, they zero in on these existential truths. Perhaps the author feels their truth more keenly as he ages. Reckonings, indeed, is ‘Being called to account after death.’
And so he writes, mocking Trump: ‘Manichean universe. Winners and losers (“gutless losers,” “total losers,” “stone cold losers”). Zero sum: winner takes all. But…what of a world without losers? Without winners? No DJT?’ And since every one of us is going to die, ‘I imagined posthumous glory-hound DJT lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Publicly decomposing, still star of the show as Fox News records him rotting 24/7….’ And since this is the grift-gluttonous MAGA we’re talking about, ‘Also getting richer from the sale of MAGA-treasured relics — teeth, implanted hair, toenails, skeleton. And the priceless genitals? Nothing like ’em since the Holy Prepuce, Christ’s elusive foreskin.’
Farber cites Mussolini’s fate – captured by partisans at the end of World War II, executed by gunshot, hung upside down in a public square. Is this Trump’s fate? And then there was Napoleon – defeated at Waterloo in 1815, exiled to the remote island of St. Helena. ‘Accompanied by members of his retinue, from whom he continued to require imperial etiquette, increasingly obese, Napoleon lived another six years under the control of British soldiers.’
Farber asks, ‘Did DJT never read poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)? Never had to memorize “Ozymandias” while at military academy? No intimation of oblivion, that second death?’ He cites Philip Larkin:
It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavor
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here.
The dazzling if grim artwork that accompanies Farber’s mini-essays cannot be over-emphasized. They complement and deepen the message of corruption and a sort of karmic punishment that awaits evildoers. Bosch’s paintings in Reckonings include The resurrection of the dead and doomed led into Hell, several panels from The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and The Last Judgement. All depict suffering souls, naked, bound, tortured, pierced with arrows, skeletal. The other paintings, by the Renaissance artists, Lieven van den Clite, Lucas Cranach the elder and Ian Mandijn, are similarly gruesome, not to mention the Blake watercolor, The Simoniac Pope, inspired by Canto XIX of The Inferno, depicting Pope Nicholas III being cast headfirst into a flaming pit, the soles of his feet on fire.
Thomas Farber’s Reckonings is both a brilliant satirical take on a would-be tyrant and a reminder that death awaits us all.