Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes [Hardcover]

Jim Holt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2008

In the fine tradition of On Bullshit comes this outrageous, uproarious compendium of absurdity, filth, racy paradox, and mature philosophical reflection.

Stop Me If You've Heard This is the first book to trace the evolution of the joke from the stand-up comics of ancient Athens to the comedy-club Seinfelds of today. Cropping up en route are such unforgettable figures as Poggio, a Renaissance papal secretary and sexual adventurer; and Gershon Legman, the FBI-hounded psychoanalyst of dirty jokes. Having explored humor's history in part one, Jim Holt then delves into philosophy in part two. Jewish jokes; Wall Street jokes; jokes about rednecks and atheists, bulimics and politicians; jokes that you missed if you didn't go to a Catholic girls' school; jokes about language and logic itself—all become fodder for the grand theories of Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein. A heady mix of the high and the low, of the ribald and the profound, this handsomely illustrated volume demands to be read by anyone who has ever peered into the abyss and asked: What's so funny?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A complete history of the joke and its philosophical motivations will perhaps never be written, as Holt admits that the joke is not an unchanging Platonic Ideal, but a historical form that evolves over time. Holt, a contributor to the New Yorker, tries anyway, tracking the joke's evolution from the oldest surviving joke book, the surprisingly blue Greek text Philogelos, to Freud and Kant in explaining how and why we laugh at jokes. The book's second half occasionally lapses into dryness; even Holt suggests that the more interesting a subject is, the more boring the accompanying philosophy. In examining two overlooked aspects of a common joke, Holt presents some illuminating thoughts—jokes evolve more than they are created; they are an ideal way to expel pent-up aggression—and fascinating fringe figures such as Gershon Legman, the controversial and pioneering dirty-joke archivist who saw himself as the keeper of the deepest subcellar in the burning Alexandria Library of the age; the subcellar of our secret desires, which no one else was raising so much as a finger to preserve. Highly readable, Holt's effort will appeal to the intellectually curious, and the jokes are pretty funny. (July)
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Review

Explodes the myth that the high and low brow are more than a couple of inches apart....Seriously funny stuff. -- Colin McGinn, author of The Making of a Philosopher

Fast-moving, idiosyncratic...a stocking-stuffer. -- The New York Times Book Review

Finally, I understand what it is I've been laughing at for all these years. -- Jimmy Kimmel

Holt...takes in so much about the history and philosophy of joke-telling in his concise and amiable conspectus of the subject. -- Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

Jim Holt manages here to be deadly serious and perfectly hilarious at the same time. -- Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the US

Jim Holt riffs in Stop Me If You've Heard This. -- Vanity Fair

Small, witty, and delightful...a worthy successor to Harry Frankfurt's brilliant On Bullshit. -- Simon Blackburn, The New York Sun

The truth behind the glamour. -- Fran Lebowitz

Viewed through Holt's complex, concise lens, the joke comes off as a contender for humankind's most profound mode of expression. -- Elle

Witty and engaging...This is a very funny tale and it produces some marvelous and unlikely heroes. -- The New York Review of Books

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1St Edition edition (July 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393066738
• ISBN-13: 978-0393066739
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kalamazoo!, July 25, 2008

By 

Bart King (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes (Hardcover)

This is an erudite and clever book, hence the five stars. I'd expect nothing less from author Jim Holt, whose work I've enjoyed immensely before. But as much as I liked Stop Me If You've Heard This, my enjoyment was, of necessity, short-lived.

At less than 7-by-5 inches in size, this is a smallish book. It's also a slender one. If you subtract the index, credits, and bibliography, it has 126 pages of material. Now subtract the 24 illustrations and you're down to 102 pages of text.

At this point, one notices the book's colossal margins, and how humankind's entire "history of jokes" is covered in 41 pages. In fact, this section is as much about joke collectors throughout the ages as the jokes themselves.

But all is forgiven in the book's second half ("Philosophy"), wherein Holt really shines. In addition to providing a variety of jokes types, there are also a number of worthy theories regarding their origins, classifications, and ramifications. In short, this is the part of the book where you'll laugh.

To sum up, while I anticipated a hardcover book, what I got was a bound copy of two essays. These were, respectively, good and most excellent. But imagining a bookstore shopper paying this book's list price of $15.95 makes me a little uneasy. While I was happy to avail myself of the on-line discount, perhaps the publisher could have taken this book's price point more... seriously?

*Finally, as to "Kalamazoo!", it is Holt's submission for the shortest joke in the world. (You'll have to read his explanation on pp. 79-80.)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What's so funny?, August 28, 2008

By 

Kaeli Vandertulip (Irving, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes (Hardcover)

This is the question that Holt aims to answer in his short, witty, and pithy book. He traces the history of jokes-when we started telling them, when they were recorded, and how they have evolved (and devolved) over time. He focuses mostly on dirty jokes-jokes about sex, bodily functions, racism, and sexism-namely because at a certain level, all jokes are dirty and tasteless, and that's why we love them. He also examines WHY things are funny from philosophical, psychological, and physiological perspectives. Do we laugh at a joke because it is unexpected, because it allows us to acknowledge the darker sides of our psyche, or because a certain section of our brain is suddenly stimulated?



Holt is a clever writer and provides lots of sample jokes to show what he's trying to explain. However, this book is just too darn short. He could have easily doubled the length of the book to just get into everything. This book gives a few biographies of influential people in the history and study of jokes, but doesn't delve into the theories nearly deeply enough. I was constantly disappointed that he didn't spend more time on each topic. But this just shows how good a read the book is-he leaves the reader wanting more.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where can I get Scrod?, August 13, 2008

By 

Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes (Hardcover)

What makes us laugh? Why do certain jokes work? How long have jokes been around? The answers to these and many more questions are contained in this delightful look at the "history" of jokes. It goes almost without saying that one of the very early humorists, Poggio Bracciolini, was a Papal Secretary. Oh, the stories he could tell....and did!

As author Jim Holt proceeds, the book gets funnier and it isn't the compendium of jokes that makes this slender volume so attractive, but it is the different kinds of jokes and our responses to them (which makes up the thrust of his writing) that allows you to pause, think and laugh. "Stop Me If You've Heard This" can be read in one easy sitting and when you're through you hope a sequel might be in order. Or even out of order. I highly recommend it.