Book Review: The 50 Funniest American Writers, edited by Andy Borowitz

This article was first published at Blogcritics.

Oddly enough, readers of The 50 Funniest American Writers according to Andy Borowitz will quickly discover that only one of the writings of this superlative group included in the anthology seems to have been published prior to the 20^th century. Although eleven of the writers were born in the 19^th century, they don't seem to have gotten funny until the after the new century turned.  It would seem that other than Mark Twain who managed to be funny in 1879, Americans were too busy doing other things to be funny.  Still, it may be somewhat curmudgeonly to voice any complaint about Borowitz's selections in the light of the introductory essay in which he points out that it is really impossible to create a "funniest" list that will satisfy everyone, so he really didn't try.  These are simply writings by writers that make him laugh.  Besides, the only reason he even suggested the project was because "best of lists" were sure fire money makers.  In effect don't complain, make your own damn list. 

Clearly criticism of what is not included is off limits, but so it would seem is criticism of what is included.  You can't say that some of the pieces are not all that funny.  First of all Borowitz thinks they're funny, and second of all these are a collection of pieces by the "funniest" writers, not a collection of funny pieces (despite what the unwary reader might expect).  You can't say that some of these writers—Sinclair Lewis, Phillip Roth, Charles Portis--may have written a funny piece or two or even a dozen, but when shove is met by push their claim to fame is not their power to create laughter.  I mean how do you define funniest?  Is it the man who wrote one really funny essay, funnier that the woman who wrote a gaggle of moderately funny essays and a short story that got a few chuckles? 

There is no point in going on without seeming little more than a quibbler without a sense of humor.  Under the circumstance the only reasonable course of action is to describe what does lie between the covers and let you, dear reader, come to your own conclusions.  Borowitz limited his selections to prose: essays, short fiction, excerpts from longer works like memoirs and novels—no poetry, no dramatic works, no stand-up routines.  There is satire, both political and social.  There is parody.  There are witty gems and attempts at witty gems. There is humor intellectual and humor sophomoric. 

Of the 50 selections there are some that stand out (there are some that fall flat but with 50 to chose from, the dreary few are forgivable).  The anthology begins with Mark Twain's confessions of his wicked deeds as a prelude to making a presidential run and ends with Larry Wilmore's advice to some future president about how to apologize to blacks for slavery without really apologizing.  Between the two there is Sinclair Lewis's satiric account of crass middle class culture in a section from his novel Babbitt, the O. Henry story that could have been the model for Home Alone, "The Ransom of Red Chief," and a Ring Lardner description of a conversation between two old acquaintances who have nothing to say to each other.  There is a parody of noir detective fiction by S. J. Perelman and political satire by Molly Ivins.  There's a clever bit about deploying vowels to Bosnia from The Onion and an overly long piece about stereotyping from the National Lampoon.

My own highlights: "Vacation '58" a story by John Hughes (yes, the movie guy) which was to become the basis of the National Lampoon vacation series.  George Carlin has a rant about the misuse of language by broadcasters called "If I Were in Charge of the Networks" that is both funny and informative.   A section from Lenny Bruce's How to Talk Dirty and Influence People destroys any idea that a comic's life on the road is in any way glamorous.  Woody Allen's send up of the Mafia, "A Look at Organized Crime" is a good example of his earlier work and very funny.  Peter de Vries story of one man's attempt to get his wife to play straight man for him at dinner parties had me laughing out loud.  This has to stop: Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, E. B. White, Hunter Thompson, Bernie Mac, David Sedaris—if you can't find something to make you laugh, you have a problem.

In an interview on NPR, Borowitz talked about The 50 Funniest American Writers as a bathroom book.  I don't know about bathroom, but it is probably a book you want to dip into from time to time, read an essay here, a story there.  Reading it all at once tends to get you jaded.  You begin to suffer from the law of diminishing returns, and suddenly things aren't quite that funny.  You may not want to keep the book in your bathroom, but you might well want to keep it handy and read a piece or two to take a break from War and Peace.

On Bathrooms and Books

When Jane Austen was struggling over some recalcitrant passage in her account of the romantic entanglements of the Dashwood sisters or Elizabeth Bennet, did she imagine, I wonder, that some couple of hundred years down the road, some appreciative reader would be perusing the results of that struggle wedged comfortably in a three foot nook between bathroom sink and wall, happily ensconced upon the porcelain throne. Would she blush at the image? Would she turn up her nose at the vulgarity? As an artist would it offend her either her sense or her sensibility?

I had an idea for a one act play.

Jay, an author–refined and elegant–enters from Phil’s bathroom. In his hand he waves a copy of his latest tome, a volume on which he has presumably toiled with loving care. He holds it up for Phil who is already on stage to see.

Phil: Your book.

Jay: In the bathroom.

Phil: I was reading–

Jay: In the bathroom?

Phil: Yes, I was–

Jay: In the bathroom.

Phil: Right. I was reading–

Jay: But the bathroom.

Phil: What’s wrong with the bath–

Jay: Well, it wasn’t exactly defecation entertainment I had in mind when I–

And so on.

Would Jane have felt the same sense of outrage to find a copy of “Pride and Prejudice” next to some squire’s chamber pot? Imagine a modern day Milton flush from his success in justifying the ways of God to man, emerging from the toilet with a copy of his “Paradise Lost.”
A Flaubert with his “Madame Bovary;” a Longinus with–well you get the idea. How offensive is it to think of some ur-reader “instresspassing” the sprung rhythms of Gerard Manly Hopkins dedication to his creator while engaging in the perhaps most human of bodily functions? Would that spark gash, gold vermillion?

I, for one, never if I can help it, enter the toilet unaccompanied by some literary companion–preferably whatever book I happen to be in the midst of at the moment nature calls (a collection of essays by the novelist John Barth sharing the honors most recently with Charles Dickens’ “Martin Chuzzlewit”), although any handy volume will do in a pinch. Over the years (I, having lived a good many years, have had more than my share of opportunity) I have been accompanied by a good many of the great and a great many of the good novelists, poets, philosophers, historians, biographers, literary critics and even a dramatist or two, to say nothing of the even greater number of mediocre and bad writers. Although it is arguable that, with this latter group at least, the toilet may well be the most appropriate place to meet. Reading in the bathroom has become habit with me, as essential as breathing, and it has never occurred to me to make distinctions between what might or might not be appropriate in those circumstances. Shakespeare or Stephen King–any port in a storm.

As an author, however–

On the one hand, having labored long and painfully–it is not without reason that the metaphor most often employed for the act of writing is that of birth, my book, my child, is the writer asking too much to hope for an easy chair by a roaring fire or a lamp lit table in the reading room of the New York Public Library? Any reader with any sense of decency would seem to owe the writer and his child some modicum of respect. On the other hand, should not the writer be thrilled that some fellow being is willing to spend even a few of the precious minutes that make up a life reading what comes from his pen, whatever the circumstances of that reading might be? To take offense at finding one’s work sitting on the hamper opposite the commode is either excessively squeamish or extremely vain. Or both.

In my unwritten play, I had intended to make Jay, my author, a pompous finicky sort, overly impressed with himself, a man guilty as charged of this kind of other hand ingratitude. After all were he to find himself in my house in need of the conveniences, he would more than likely emerge waving that copy of his tome. But as I was writing the “first hand” considerations began to kick in. I began to think that perhaps there is something graceless and crude about mixing beauty with excrement, the sublime with the gross. Perhaps my character would be wrong in attributing beauty or sublimity or even value to his own work, but the general principle would still be true: a place for everything, and everything in its place. Intentions being what they are, I found myself unable to continue.

As an author, I myself would be plenty happy, overjoyed to have someone reading my work, reading this, wherever the hell his or her backside happened to be squatting, even if I can also feel for my fellow writer filling every rift with ore and wanting something more from his reader. So I stopped writing my one act play, but with the law of conservation of energy in mind (as well as waste not, want not), I opted for this essay instead.

I am reminded of more than forty years ago when a professor of mine at New York University had published a three volume life of Lord Byron, his life’s work, only to find it sitting in the window of a remainder book store on West Eighth Street in the Village which he passed every day on his way from the subway to the school. I suspect that were I that professor, my own preference would have been to find one of those three volumes with a book marker at page 183 sitting on the cabinet of some avid reader’s bathroom sink. So for myself, dear reader, if you are reading this in your bathroom, thank you. If you are reading it in the unisex lavatory where you work, thank you. If you are reading it an outhouse next to a Sears and Roebuck catalogue, thank you.

And, by the way, if you are reading this on the internet, you are welcome to print a copy, take it to your toilet, drop your pants and enjoy. And if the paper you printed it on is soft enough–

But, remember, that’s just me.