The Book of Job as written by a lawyer

I follow a legal humor blog called Lowering the Bar, not because I love law but simply because I find the guy's writing style hilarious. I also love the Torah / Old Testament book of Job (which is why any time a sermon or article mentions Job, it instantly grabs my attention... and sets my expectations high, because I like to make-believe I'm extremely knowledgeable about the subject). So you can imagine my excitement about today's LtB headline: "And Then Job Spake, and Said, Let a Restraining Order Issue Against the Lord".

After stifling giggles from my cubicle (for example, this sentence: "The reporter apparently has a transcript of the hearing, and yet has failed to link it, which hath caused me to rent my garments and wail in frustration (working at home today)."), I followed a link at the bottom of the article with the words, "If Great Literary Works Had Been Written by Lawyers." Here I found a 2-page Lawyerly retelling of the book of Job that was hysterical (namely, Job's now-infamous words, "Indeed, this sucketh") and also, as all great parodies should, showed a deeply intimate knowledge of the original source text.

As I read Job's law firm woes, I starting picturing the Venn diagram of how extremely narrow a population this particular piece of prose might appeal to: lawyers (and also real people) who enjoy law, have a sense of humor, and who are at least passingly familiar with the book of Job (aka likely "religious" people). While I have no solid statistics, I suspect that total number world-wide to be ... rather small. Yet Kevin wrote the piece anyway, and I think that's beautiful.

My friend Michelle writes frequently on her blog how vitally important it is for authors to write the stories that are yearning to burst onto the page, rather than wasting time worrying how many readers may read them:

"You love writing fantasy? Then write it. You have a passion for Westerns? Pen a saddle-buster of a tale. The point is that whatever genre makes your heart go pitter-patter is the genre you should be writing."
- From Writer Off The Leash

Which, from my view, is exactly what Kevin did. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading the end product.