From Huck to Holden to Dinky Hocker: Current Humor in the American Adolescent Novel

The dark side of adolescence has unquestionably been the dominant theme of adolescent literature over the past decade. It is difficult to think of a topic previously prohibited that has not been used during this period; the result has been a proliferation of books on such topics as suicide, violence, homosexuality, divorce, unwed parenthood, and physical deformities. Sylvia Plath's adult novel The Bell Jar¹ alone has sparked an amazing number of books concerned with serious psychological problems during the adolescent years. But amidst this emphasis on the darkness and realities of our age has also emerged a collateral side of humor—one more witty than broad, more bittersweet than uproarious, more sophisticated than sophomoric. Interestingly, such humor is frequently combined with the darkness, the grim realism of so much current literature written for the adolescent.

Historically, humor in that part of American literature concerned with adolescents has at heart been condescending. A commonly noted exception is Twain's Huckleberry Finn, but even here the reader realizes that Huck is basically a spokesman for Twain, not for himself. The emergence of a truer adolescent voice has been long in coming: humor until recently was based primarily on artificial comic situations or on broad characterizations that turned into caricatures. A classic example would be Willie Baxter (in Booth Tarkington's Seventeen²) falling in "love" with young Miss Pratt who would baby-talk such lines as, "Izzum's ickle heart a-beatin' so floppity! Um's own mumsy make ums all right, um's p'eshus Flopit!"³ Whatever the sins of today's realists, they pale in contrast with such dialogue.

In The Adolescent in the American Novel 1920-1960,⁴ W. Tasker Witham discusses the two dominant characteristics in American literature that George Santayana terms "genteel tradition" and "aggressive enterprise." Genteel tradition can best be defined by such terms as innocence, lack of complexity, sentimentality, importance of hard work to achieve material success—in short the Puritan ethic. But around 1920, American literature shifted from gentility to a period of increasing frankness and rebellion, of "aggressive enterprise," and this dramatically changed the literary treatment of the adolescent. Books written for the adolescent, both serious and comic, have taken longer to move in this direction, but today the term "aggressive enterprise" is an accurate description of many novels for the adolescent.

A particularly good example of aggressive enterprise and the breaking of previous taboos is John Neufeld's Freddy's Book. ⁵ This novel, written on the pre- or early adolescent level, recounts Freddy's humorous attempt to find out the meaning of a most common four letter word scrawled on the wall of the boys' bathroom in his school.

Clearly, the only thing for it was to understand what the word meant. Once. For all. If it were going to appear in strange places, if it were going to be heard from boys his own age, he would simply have to know exactly what it meant.

He decided that what ever its meaning, the word couldn't be difficult to understand. There were only four letters in it.⁶

At this pre-adolescent stage, a young person's most common source of information (read mis-) tends to be from his friends. Freddy asks his best friend, Johnny, if he knows what the word means.

"Sure," Johnny replied. "Everybody does."

"What?"

"Well," Johnny said, stretching the word carefully.

"What it is," he said after a minute, "is bumping."

"Bumping?" Freddy was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Johnny admitted, "but that's what it is. I heard some older guys at school talk about bumping someone. One of the girls in their class. Bumping the hell out of her, they said."⁷

Freddy finds out, however, that there are certain nuances of language that need more precise clarification. To check out his new found knowledge he playfully bumps against his older sister, Pru, in her bedroom.

Pru asked. "What kind of silly game are you playing now?"

"I just bumped into you...