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STANDUP GUYS.("Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s")(Book Review)

The New Yorker

| May 12, 2003 | Gopnik, Adam | COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

Anyone can make jokes about books on comedy. Even the grumpy-belletrist-in-a-bow-tie type can tap the dottle out of his pipe long enough to harrumph out the old one about how Mr. Murkle seems to have got comedy down and broken its arm, while the postmodernist professor makes garlicky puns about the subversion inherent in garlicky puns. Everyone feels smug about books on jokes, because we all know that there's no explaining jokes--though perhaps we wouldn't be so smug if we stopped and tried to explain why it so often takes a joke to explain us.

But comedy, like cooking, is a great subject, and should not be avoided just because it is also a hard one. This is ...

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