What's So Funny?: Making Sense of Humor (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- What's So Funny?: Making Sense of Humor
Why does a joke, pun, trick, or pratfall make one person double over howling while another sits stone-faced? Why do things that used to be hilarious now seem lame? How come parents (kids?) just don't get it? In nine short, cartoon-illustrated, gag-infused chapters Jackson culls the fields of neurology, psychology, and physiology to explore the essence of humor. Readers learn that humor varies across time, culture, and gender, that laughter can be literally contagious, that laughs can be sorted and labeled, that successful tickling requires an element of surprise, and, as most kids who think about it will agree, that humor can be directed toward positive and negative ends. Granted, this slim survey does nothing more than skim the surface of the issues, but it tackles them with clarity and vigor and it supplies specific source notes to bolster all claims. An index and bibliography lend additional gravitas, and the website suggestions, which include such delights as the Ig Nobel Prizes and a Vanderbilt professor's page of recorded laugh types, should lure readers into the generally shunned end matter. Toss this life raft to a reluctant reader facing a nonfiction book report and make yourself a hero.
