THE JOKE THAT DIDN'T QUITE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 823, 6 May 1955, Page 12

THE JOKE THAT DIDN'T QUITE

THE HUMOUR OF HUMOUR, by Evan Esar; Phoenix House, through A. H. and A. W. Reed, N.Z. pricé 12/6. ERHAPS I expected too much of Evan Esar’s The Humour of Humour. The author, in his preface; says: "Ever since the days of Plato and Aristotle the

main tradition in the study of comedy has been phildsophic. Only within recent decades has it turned scientific, chiefly through psychology." This made me expect to be told a little about the mechanisms that make human beings laugh when they laugh. I found instead that Mr. Esar was intent on creating what he calls a science of "humorology" (and a vocabulary to go with it), and that what this science boils down to is a minute classification of types of funny story without the slightest reason being given as to why we should find them funny at all. However, making my way through laffers, twistwit, fuddletalk, biograms and blendwords. I did find that even though there may be no new jokes, there are innumerable different ways of retelling the old ones. Apparently fashions in humour change, some quickly, some very slowly; hence the disappearance of the knock-knock joke and the awful permanence of the one about mothers-in-law. More than that, various times produce various types of humour. In our age of neurosis the humour of utter insanity has shown a not very surprising development-take, for instance, the story of the two psychiatrists who greeted one another on the street with "You're fine, how am I?" : On the whole, then, Mr. Esar has achieved something. And if it is of value to know whether your favourite joke is a Freudian twist or merely a Bull, something of importance. But I can’t help feeling that it would have been so much better done in a serio-comic manner, It could have been a gorgeous joke, but as it is it doesn’t quite come off.

Peter

Cape