(no subject)

I was thinking about the resurgence of the Gothic themes (in urban fantasy particularly) is interesting, and how children's literature has gone back even closer to it's forebears in terms of Gothic plotting and setting (Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, Lemony Snickett, Flora Segunda).

The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, both could fit right into that reading list...what's more, right into the cover art:
  
(Okay, thinking about Flora Segunda makes me thrilled with the Dandies in Kilts idea all over again. Some people are so imaginative...)

Which made me realize the only big difference is the sense of madcap humor, the self-deprecation in it. In popular literature now that's kind of the unique thing to our era, don't you think? The Gothic novels were very self-serious (except for Northanger Abbey--that book deserves so much more admiration). The sarcasm of Urban Fantasy is overplayed, but really one of it's great draws.

I might cross-post this to urbanfantasyfan as a book-thinky post. To try and encourage them to be interesting...
But as hardly anyone ever answers there, tell me:

Is Self-Deprecation Humor a unique asset to our "post-modern" literature?

You may blame this speculation on reading Coyote Dreams and Heart of Stone (mizkit) successively in less than 42 hours, and much less open-brain-space.