Stop Me If You've Heard This by Jim Holt
| Stop Me If You've Heard This by Jim Holt | |
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| Category: Humour | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A guide to the pioneers of joke collections, and some musings on what makes the topic of humour so worthwhile. A short snappy joke, but one in need of a better punchline. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 160 | Date: October 2008 |
| Publisher: Profile Books Ltd | |
| ISBN: 978-1846681097 | |
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As far as I can remember, my first time in print was when I submitted some jokes to a charity's themed joke collection. Before then, some of my first actions as a child might have been laughing, and what is cuter in a baby than that? But why was that infant laughing – he didn't have a joke he could get, surely?
Evidently there is a history to laughter and laugh-making. When I was a lot younger there were a lot of jokes about elephants. How can an elephant hide in a bowl of custard? Float upside down with the soles of his feet painted yellow. Not very funny, and indeed when you look at it quite an absurd proposition – but then no joke, however funny, survives much analysis. This book informs me that before then, in ninteen-sixties America, there was another slew of jokes about elephants, but ones that were all apparently thinly veiled allusions to other creatures from the jungle, with horrid proboscises – the black male.
The sense of humour we have depends on our level of wit, intelligence, maturity and so on. I well remember my drama teacher at sixth form saying what his favourite joke ever was. Two nuns in a communal bath. One asks Where's the soap? The other says Yes it does, doesn't it. Not funny to me now, or then, and certainly not funny to me when I was too young to understand it.
It might however have appealed to some of the characters introduced to us in this book's first half. Our author pins down the people to compile the first joke books, although joke in those days was interchangeable with witty epithet, perhaps with moral, perhaps with punch-line, mayhap without. It might not have, however – as it seems some sex gags have such a history it would be far too old hat for them.
And with the people collecting and collating humour right up to the present day, there comes a point when with all this compiling, and with people deeming jokes to be urban, oral folklore, we are led to discussion, and a philosophy of the comedy line. And the second half of this book duly does the same.
We seem to be on solid ground here, as there are three rules of comedy I know of and they're here too. The k sound is the most humorous in the English tongue – if any supermarket could ever make you titter it would be Tesco's before Morrison's. Second, there is a hard and fast rule of three, and anybody trying to do stand-up or write a comedic play will tell you it is a rule because it works. And finally, thirdly (see?), there is the rule that comedy has to be against someone else. Nobody in their right mind would find their mishaps with banana peel funny, but people as serious as Samuel Beckett and countless more have profited from other people slipping on banana skins.
The banana skins in this book are evident, but they don't really spoil the gag. The book is noticeably American, which is not a problem, just too evident. Especially when we are given what North Americans apparently judged the funniest line ever. It only left me with a 'you what now?'.
The book is far too short, and I say that for the sense that we are always enjoying what we are given as well as needing more. It is clear there is a bit more to be said – about the comic strip, which is a two-line joke in pictorial form. Graffiti ranged from drawing a hemisphere or two, a brick wall and stating someone 'woz 'ere', to the more modern instances – surely a bigger case of the urban folklore there. There is one graffito that, like the masturbating nun above, only half the population is likely to get – if only because it is seen only on male toilet walls.
Some wag somewhere finds it funny to draw an interminable line, withfollow this at the beginning, and you are now weeing on your shoes at the other end. The whole art of comedy is inherent in that one instance. If your line, or shaggy dog story, is too long, the witness gets to the end and is not laughing – he merely disagrees, saying no I'm not, I gave up ages ago and I'm just shaking my head.
I feel more allowed to mention that when our author uses the phrase jest-books for early gag collections. Where does the jest, the gag, the taunt, tease or joke begin and end?
And partly as a result of the book being too short, it is inconclusive. (Another rule of three – it always feel natural, as well, so it must be true.) It comes down with an answer of sorts when it tells us about conclusions made by neuroscientists looking at what parts of the brain are active when we are made to laugh, but as for the more open-ended philosophical sides to the whole subject, as fascinating as they are, and as ever-interesting this little book is, we need a decision from our author, and a punchline greater than we have here.
You might well disagree. I might not have a very common sense of humour anyway – I laughed most here at the naff line on page 106, more for the creator of it seeming to have tried so hard for so little effect. Schadenfreude is a big part of comedy, of course.
Our educative guide here does not allow his presence or judgement on the page, but does seem to give us an authoritative little guide to his subject. It's much bigger than one of those little gift books it might appear to be, but left itself short in other aspects. I would still happily recommend it, and the Bookbag thanks Profile Books for sending us a review copy.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Stop Me If You've Heard This by Jim Holt at Amazon.com.
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