Some obscure and mysterious mix of expected and unexpected
November 21, 2023 1:45 AM Subscribe
Regardless of how we understand “timelessness,” that vague but irreplaceable quality we take to inhere in any classic, a good joke comes as close as possible to embodying its reality in the written word.
A joke is language unmasked. A joke grounds and justifies itself. A joke bears all things, believes all things. from All Classics Are Funny
A joke is language unmasked. A joke grounds and justifies itself. A joke bears all things, believes all things. from All Classics Are Funny
Of all the things I've learned as an adult, that I wish I could go back and share with myself as a kid--well, okay, first would be stop wearing the damned windbreaker to school every day, even when it's 85 degrees outside, but second would be, ignore your teachers when they talk about classics being important, because what makes literature literature is that it's good. And good very often means funny. I don't know whether it was an artifact of my particular school, or the part of the South I grew up in, or what, but classics were, first and foremost, stuffy things that nobody wanted to read. You would work through a book for the week you were doing it in class, then take the test, then forget it forever. Or you and your classmates would take turns droning out a paragraph at a time with all the vacant seriousness of saying your bible verses in Sunday School.
Even in college, even as an English major, I divided my reading into "important" and "entertaining"--and the second had to be done outside of classes. Important books were ones you could fit together with your critical tools--marxist and freudian readings, deconstruction--like the way antibodies and antigens fit together.
I mean I realize I sound like an idiot saying this, but it simply never occurred to me you could really enjoy a classic the way you could, say, a novel about alien vampires taking over the earth. It wasn't that I had never derived any joy from any of them--I had my favorite bits of books and poems here and there--but they were work.
And then anyway, flash forward to being a grown-up and deciding to fill in some of the gaps of things I hadn't read, a good and studious goal, and discovering that I really liked these books. I spent a year on Dickens, until I felt like I could predict the next joke before it happened. I went back and read Jane Austen--as the author of this piece says, with an eye to the humor instead of the romance (or, in the case of my reading for class, the precarious finances). I finally sat down and read Don Quixote and Moby Dick and Middlemarch and all the stuff--and like, where were these books in high school? Where were they in college? How come nothing had ever been funny, when I had to do a paper on it?
I still have huge gaps in my reading. At some point I really want to sit down with Tolstoy. And I've got this Chekhov collection I've barely looked at. Proust is still too daunting. I've given up on Joyce but have made peace with that. But knowing that they're out there in the future, and that they're accessible and human in a way they would not have been when channeled through a high school literature class, makes them something to look forward to, rather than some dark cloud on the reading horizon.
(okay, the second thing i'd go back and tell myself is, please stop filling your pockets with kleenex like you're a chipmunk gathering acorns in its cheeks. but literature would definitely be in the top ten topics.)
posted by mittens at 4:56 AM on November 21, 2023 [19 favorites]
Even in college, even as an English major, I divided my reading into "important" and "entertaining"--and the second had to be done outside of classes. Important books were ones you could fit together with your critical tools--marxist and freudian readings, deconstruction--like the way antibodies and antigens fit together.
I mean I realize I sound like an idiot saying this, but it simply never occurred to me you could really enjoy a classic the way you could, say, a novel about alien vampires taking over the earth. It wasn't that I had never derived any joy from any of them--I had my favorite bits of books and poems here and there--but they were work.
And then anyway, flash forward to being a grown-up and deciding to fill in some of the gaps of things I hadn't read, a good and studious goal, and discovering that I really liked these books. I spent a year on Dickens, until I felt like I could predict the next joke before it happened. I went back and read Jane Austen--as the author of this piece says, with an eye to the humor instead of the romance (or, in the case of my reading for class, the precarious finances). I finally sat down and read Don Quixote and Moby Dick and Middlemarch and all the stuff--and like, where were these books in high school? Where were they in college? How come nothing had ever been funny, when I had to do a paper on it?
I still have huge gaps in my reading. At some point I really want to sit down with Tolstoy. And I've got this Chekhov collection I've barely looked at. Proust is still too daunting. I've given up on Joyce but have made peace with that. But knowing that they're out there in the future, and that they're accessible and human in a way they would not have been when channeled through a high school literature class, makes them something to look forward to, rather than some dark cloud on the reading horizon.
(okay, the second thing i'd go back and tell myself is, please stop filling your pockets with kleenex like you're a chipmunk gathering acorns in its cheeks. but literature would definitely be in the top ten topics.)
posted by mittens at 4:56 AM on November 21, 2023 [19 favorites]
I keep trying to tell people that what drove Shakespeare's success was not his plots (which were stolen), or his insights into the human condition (sometimes beautiful, rarely deep), but his ability to gracefully deliver dick jokes, sometimes multiple ones per line, in iambic pentameter.
A lot of people spend way too much time trying to dig Deep Meaning out of what was originally designed mostly as a delivery system for swordfights and bawdy humor.
posted by jackbishop at 5:27 AM on November 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
A lot of people spend way too much time trying to dig Deep Meaning out of what was originally designed mostly as a delivery system for swordfights and bawdy humor.
posted by jackbishop at 5:27 AM on November 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
Metafilter: a delivery system for swordfights and bawdy humor
sorrynotsorry
posted by tspae at 6:27 AM on November 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
sorrynotsorry
posted by tspae at 6:27 AM on November 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
A little disappointed this didn't segue into a discussion of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and The Muppets because it's getting to be that time of year and also "Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail" and the ensuing explanation of what it means to be as dead as a door-nail is much more recognizably funny compared to most of what's quoted in the article.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:34 AM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:34 AM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
"Call me Fishmeal" is a joke (and not original to me).
posted by BWA at 6:36 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by BWA at 6:36 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
"I've got some customers. Call me back, Ishmael" from the Simpsons is also pretty great.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:39 AM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:39 AM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Mittens, I would have never attempted Proust myself except that I joined a book club this year that Actually Reads The Books, and we did Swann's Way, and I must tell you: it is dense, of course, but it can also be very funny. Very arch and catty in a way I was not expecting at all.
posted by IcarusFloats at 6:45 AM on November 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by IcarusFloats at 6:45 AM on November 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think this essay misses something, which is that humor, devoid of a common cultural understanding is meaningless at best. What I remember about the Sumerian joke is that no one gets it, not even people who study ancient Sumer. Similarly, whatever jokes were embedded in the Bacchae or Antigone or Thucydides' history were lost on me. I loved reading those (and seeing other plays by the same authors, especially Medea) due to the power to make me feel. Maybe there are some dick jokes hidden in the Melian dialogue. If there are, I'm missing them. Similarly, I really enjoyed the translation of Journey to the West that I read. It's a fantastic adventure story. But even Pigsy, who has the potential to be the most comical character, isn't really that funny. The only funny bit I can remember is Monkey pissing on the Buddha's finger, thinking it is a mountain. And I'm not sure that was really intended as a joke.
Maybe my memory has just failed me on these. But I still remember Shakespeare's joke about "country matters," and that is in Hamlet, not one of his comedies.
I think the author is correct that humor helps preserve things. But I don't think that's necessary for all classics. And I think that the loss of context and other humor getting stale/being discarded also detracts from this. Maybe I'm just not cultured in the right way, but his description of the Russian nobleman in War and Peace when talking about the policeman killed by tying him to a bear and throwing them in the river (if the bear is alive, the policeman is going to get mauled, if the bear is dead, he's got a 300lb dead weight attached to him while in a major river) gives spark to my inner Bolshevik / Jacobin. I don't find it funny, I find it horrifying and a good reason to make sure that no one can be this removed from reality. It might be funny if the aristocrat was later mauled but the bear, but him joking about that does not land anywhere close to my sense of humor. (Incidentally, I saw the Broadway musical. The best thing I got out of it is the plastic cup I use to wash my dog. Massive context was needed, the songs were lousy, the staging and costuming were attempting to be modern, but ended up just bad. It was put out of its misery because of a race kerfuffle. (A Black lead was pushed out for a White actor, but honestly, if I was either of them, I wouldn't want it on my resume.))
This felt like a reach. I understand what he's trying to do. But sometimes a work stands not due to its humor but because it taps deeply into another emotion.
posted by Hactar at 7:24 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Maybe my memory has just failed me on these. But I still remember Shakespeare's joke about "country matters," and that is in Hamlet, not one of his comedies.
I think the author is correct that humor helps preserve things. But I don't think that's necessary for all classics. And I think that the loss of context and other humor getting stale/being discarded also detracts from this. Maybe I'm just not cultured in the right way, but his description of the Russian nobleman in War and Peace when talking about the policeman killed by tying him to a bear and throwing them in the river (if the bear is alive, the policeman is going to get mauled, if the bear is dead, he's got a 300lb dead weight attached to him while in a major river) gives spark to my inner Bolshevik / Jacobin. I don't find it funny, I find it horrifying and a good reason to make sure that no one can be this removed from reality. It might be funny if the aristocrat was later mauled but the bear, but him joking about that does not land anywhere close to my sense of humor. (Incidentally, I saw the Broadway musical. The best thing I got out of it is the plastic cup I use to wash my dog. Massive context was needed, the songs were lousy, the staging and costuming were attempting to be modern, but ended up just bad. It was put out of its misery because of a race kerfuffle. (A Black lead was pushed out for a White actor, but honestly, if I was either of them, I wouldn't want it on my resume.))
This felt like a reach. I understand what he's trying to do. But sometimes a work stands not due to its humor but because it taps deeply into another emotion.
posted by Hactar at 7:24 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
If I need a sock puppet one day, it will be Literary Vegetables. That phrase probably saved my day: I'm writing and stuck in the vegetable patch. Thanks for posting this.
I very much agree with the premise of this article, although I have a mostly different set of classics. Like Hactar, I don't think I get all of Russian humor. On the other hand, some of your friends will see you as a weird person if they catch you laughing at Joyce on your Interrail trip. Some of my colleagues throughout my adult life never got my sense of humor and it has caused me real problems.
posted by mumimor at 7:34 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I very much agree with the premise of this article, although I have a mostly different set of classics. Like Hactar, I don't think I get all of Russian humor. On the other hand, some of your friends will see you as a weird person if they catch you laughing at Joyce on your Interrail trip. Some of my colleagues throughout my adult life never got my sense of humor and it has caused me real problems.
posted by mumimor at 7:34 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think this essay misses something, which is that humor, devoid of a common cultural understanding is meaningless at best
Exactly. There are loads of Shakespeare jokes that don't work anymore because the language has changed: either the pronunciation has changed or nobody understands the slang.
I feel like the people who turn up to Shakespeare performances and laugh ostentatiously at the fig jokes don't actually have much of a sense of humour. Yeah, you can read in a book that a fig signifies female genitalia and a rude gesture based on it, but knowing that doesn't automatically make the joke funny.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:41 AM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Exactly. There are loads of Shakespeare jokes that don't work anymore because the language has changed: either the pronunciation has changed or nobody understands the slang.
I feel like the people who turn up to Shakespeare performances and laugh ostentatiously at the fig jokes don't actually have much of a sense of humour. Yeah, you can read in a book that a fig signifies female genitalia and a rude gesture based on it, but knowing that doesn't automatically make the joke funny.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:41 AM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I really want to sit down with Tolstoy
That shouldn't be a problem - he's easy to find nowadays and he's not going anywhere. Not terribly talkative though so it'd be a one-sided conversation.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:03 AM on November 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
That shouldn't be a problem - he's easy to find nowadays and he's not going anywhere. Not terribly talkative though so it'd be a one-sided conversation.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:03 AM on November 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
But knowing that they're out there in the future, and that they're accessible and human in a way they would not have been when channeled through a high school literature class, makes them something to look forward to, rather than some dark cloud on the reading horizon.
For me it was often the other way round. I had always been an ambitous reader, picking books above my reading level for my private reading and not understanding half of anything I read. I only got a lot of those jokes in the classics when I finally took classes on them in college and finally had someone explain the necessary historical context and intertexuality to catch all the allusions and references. I've found few things less timeless than humour, it can be such an "you had to be there"-affair.
Now a tragedy, that's always relatable.
posted by sohalt at 9:41 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
For me it was often the other way round. I had always been an ambitous reader, picking books above my reading level for my private reading and not understanding half of anything I read. I only got a lot of those jokes in the classics when I finally took classes on them in college and finally had someone explain the necessary historical context and intertexuality to catch all the allusions and references. I've found few things less timeless than humour, it can be such an "you had to be there"-affair.
Now a tragedy, that's always relatable.
posted by sohalt at 9:41 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would have been convinced by the article if I had found any of it funny. I did not laugh at the horrifying bear death either.
I hated almost every classic I had to read in school except for Jane Eyre and Austen, and depending on the play, Shakespeare, on which I agree on the dirty jokes. Otherwise classics were heavy and depressing, and if they had funny jokes, they weren't funny to me by that point.
I would like to note a bit from Something Rotten: Nick wants to know why people find Shakespeare funny, and his brother's response to this is to quote that one about how people should not carry coal or else be thought of as coal carriers. Everyone laughs and laughs, Nick is all, that's not funny. I feel like that fits right in here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I hated almost every classic I had to read in school except for Jane Eyre and Austen, and depending on the play, Shakespeare, on which I agree on the dirty jokes. Otherwise classics were heavy and depressing, and if they had funny jokes, they weren't funny to me by that point.
I would like to note a bit from Something Rotten: Nick wants to know why people find Shakespeare funny, and his brother's response to this is to quote that one about how people should not carry coal or else be thought of as coal carriers. Everyone laughs and laughs, Nick is all, that's not funny. I feel like that fits right in here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have a couple collections of English Jest books, edited by P. M. Zall, A Hundred Merry Tales (15th and 16th century) and A Nest of Ninnies (17th century.) Very interesting, sometimes funny, given the time when these were written. It’s primarily the language used, the style of writing, the subjects, and the many references to mythology, other popular tales, etc that really distances these from our now current sense of humor. Getting hit in the face with a pie is probably universally funny as it’s not embedded in any historical or cultural time (except maybe pies.) Humor seems to exist in a deep network of references, and being funny depends on the listener or reader to also be in that network.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:08 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 10:08 AM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I really want to sit down with Tolstoy
That shouldn't be a problem - he's easy to find nowadays and he's not going anywhere. Not terribly talkative though so it'd be a one-sided conversation.
does this constitute a classic Greg_Ace driveby? evolved rats 5,000 years from now will resurrect this thread and have a chuckle
posted by elkevelvet at 10:32 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
That shouldn't be a problem - he's easy to find nowadays and he's not going anywhere. Not terribly talkative though so it'd be a one-sided conversation.
does this constitute a classic Greg_Ace driveby? evolved rats 5,000 years from now will resurrect this thread and have a chuckle
posted by elkevelvet at 10:32 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Rat News of the Year, December 7023: Leo Tolstoy Still Dead
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:49 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:49 AM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I feel like the people who turn up to Shakespeare performances and laugh ostentatiously at the fig jokes don't actually have much of a sense of humour. Yeah, you can read in a book that a fig signifies female genitalia and a rude gesture based on it, but knowing that doesn't automatically make the joke funny.
if a performance of a comedy doesn't make its jokes funny it's a bad performance. shakespeare does have some classic timeless setups but there's also a lot of C16th shitposting and for those you need to bring out the humour with effort.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:49 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
if a performance of a comedy doesn't make its jokes funny it's a bad performance. shakespeare does have some classic timeless setups but there's also a lot of C16th shitposting and for those you need to bring out the humour with effort.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:49 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
While “all classics are funny” might overstate the case, the article makes a good point that a lot of classics are funnier than you’d expect based on reputation and presumed cultural heft. I was pleasantly surprised when I took on some of the famous chunky Russian novels at just how engrossing, and sometimes funny they could be. They’re not only funny, books like Crime and Punishment have a lot going on, and humour is one element among many, but humour is a thing that throws in sharp relief just how alive a worthy old book can be. One of my kids recently randomly decided to pick up Anna Karenina, and it’s a delight to watch her enjoy it. Direct quote: “it’s like Bridgerton, but like … really good”.
I’m still a bit scared of Proust, but the mention of catty humour above has me thinking it might be time to give him another go.
posted by threecheesetrees at 3:26 PM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’m still a bit scared of Proust, but the mention of catty humour above has me thinking it might be time to give him another go.
posted by threecheesetrees at 3:26 PM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I admit I found Crime and Punishment a whole lot funnier when I realized that Porfiry Petrovich is COLUMBO!!! I died laughing then.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:36 PM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:36 PM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I was with him until “why hasn’t the Grapes of Wrath aged well”? I read that a couple of years ago and it’s still fucking amazing, a timely take on classism, and a really modern-feeling read . So I’m not sure I agree that classics have to be funny.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:47 PM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:47 PM on November 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
> "it’s like Bridgerton, but like … really good”.
This was my realization about the classics: not that they were funny but that they were full of DRAMATIC HAPPENINGS. It broke my brain as a teenager to read Les Miserables and find that it was a fucking page-turner, often even a nail-biter. I wonder who or what ever gave me the impression that the Classics were books in which flowery language was used to describe very little happening?
Anyway, idk about the humor, still, I mean I don't recall the Bishop of Bienvenue cracking me up at all, but dang, that Victor Hugo (and all these writers of classics) know how to tell a rollicking good story that added up to something phenomenal, something greater than the sum of their chapters. I guess that's what sets the classics apart from lighter fare, the whole adding up to something bigger aspect.
My favorite living classic writers who are still working are Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Elizabeth Strout...
posted by MiraK at 5:16 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
This was my realization about the classics: not that they were funny but that they were full of DRAMATIC HAPPENINGS. It broke my brain as a teenager to read Les Miserables and find that it was a fucking page-turner, often even a nail-biter. I wonder who or what ever gave me the impression that the Classics were books in which flowery language was used to describe very little happening?
Anyway, idk about the humor, still, I mean I don't recall the Bishop of Bienvenue cracking me up at all, but dang, that Victor Hugo (and all these writers of classics) know how to tell a rollicking good story that added up to something phenomenal, something greater than the sum of their chapters. I guess that's what sets the classics apart from lighter fare, the whole adding up to something bigger aspect.
My favorite living classic writers who are still working are Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Elizabeth Strout...
posted by MiraK at 5:16 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I wonder who or what ever gave me the impression that the Classics were books in which flowery language was used to describe very little happening?
Tell me you've read Thomas Hardy without telling me you've read Thomas Hardy.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:20 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tell me you've read Thomas Hardy without telling me you've read Thomas Hardy.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:20 PM on November 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’m still mad about Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
posted by hototogisu at 9:43 PM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hototogisu at 9:43 PM on November 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Maybe some dick jokes have been lost to the mists of history. But some jokes transcend history and culture.
CALONICE
What is it all about, dear Lysistrata,
That you've called the women hither in a troop?
What kind of an object is it?
LYSISTRATA
A tremendous thing!
CALONICE
And long?
LYSISTRATA
Indeed, it may be very lengthy.
CALONICE
Then why aren't they here?
LYSISTRATA
No man's connected with it;
If that was the case, they'd soon come fluttering along.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:13 PM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
CALONICE
What is it all about, dear Lysistrata,
That you've called the women hither in a troop?
What kind of an object is it?
LYSISTRATA
A tremendous thing!
CALONICE
And long?
LYSISTRATA
Indeed, it may be very lengthy.
CALONICE
Then why aren't they here?
LYSISTRATA
No man's connected with it;
If that was the case, they'd soon come fluttering along.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:13 PM on November 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I was amazed how very funny Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh is. Its title sounds like it would be a ponderous tome but I loled. Another of one my most hilarious favourites is Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Caxtons, a Family Picture. (Yes, "the dark and stormy night" guy.) I wish there was an audiobook of decent quality since I can no longer read the tiny print.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 3:36 AM on November 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 3:36 AM on November 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m still mad about Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Oh lord yes!! We were assigned that one semester in high school...I got somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through it before giving up in disgust and vowing never to read another word of it, or any other Hardy novel. I may have picked up a Sparknotes on it, I don't remember, but I do recall passing the test on it with a B+.
I have yet to break my vow of Hardy abstinence.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:30 AM on November 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh lord yes!! We were assigned that one semester in high school...I got somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through it before giving up in disgust and vowing never to read another word of it, or any other Hardy novel. I may have picked up a Sparknotes on it, I don't remember, but I do recall passing the test on it with a B+.
I have yet to break my vow of Hardy abstinence.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:30 AM on November 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
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His interlocutor says something like "You seem to have a sense of humour to me".
The soulless man explains that he still has a sense of irony. Not having noticed means that his interlocutor already doesn't have a sense of humour, so fortunately won't be missing it after the deal.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:36 AM on November 21, 2023 [9 favorites]