David Remnick & Henry Finder. Fierce Pajamas (2001) A representative selection of humourous New Yorker writing. I read my way through it over a couple of weeks, and there are precious few knee-slappers. There are however many pieces that will raise a smile, or annoy, or please, or engage, or interest, or trigger any other of the responses to what we read. The writers use all modes and genres, sometimes as targets, sometimes a means of humour or satire.
I enjoyed it more than I expected. I also absorbed some unexpected history of humourous writing from the chronological and thematic arrangement: Spoofs, for example, and the War Between Men and Women, or The Writing Life, as well as Words of Advice, and several others, ending with a selection of verse that proves that writing “light verse” is a serious an occupation as any other.
The tropes of humour and satire are governed by fashion: we learn of the difficulties of love and marriage through stereotypes that change over time. The overbearing wife and the meek husband (represented by Thurber’s Walter Mitty) don’t ring true anymore, but the mutual incomprehension does. There are satires on several kinds of ignorance that no longer resonate. But the self-satisfaction of the overweening ignoramus does. We even have a name for it now, it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The perils of celebrity, both for idol and adulator, are well explored in the section The Frenzy of Renown, the title itself making the main point.
A good gift for anyone who likes reading miscellaneous short writing. I was going to give it away, but I will keep it for the pleasures of rereading. ***
No comments:
Post a Comment