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?
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Book Description
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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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
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
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By Bart King
Format: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.)
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 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Reading STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS: A HISTORY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF JOKES by Jim Holt reminded me of many papers
that my students submit . . there seems to be 142 pages, but after
you subtract a bibliography, credits and an index, you are down
to 126 pages . . . take away another 24 pages for illustrations,
and you're down to 102 pages in a smallish 4.5 x 7 format with
very wide margins.
However, don't be put off by what seems to be a lack
of material . . . what is presented is interesting, as well as fun . . . and
you'll learn perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about such
individuals as Gershon Legman (the encylopedist of the dirty joke), Nat
Schmulowitz (the most prodigious joke collector of all time) and Alan
Dundes (the "joke professor" of Berkeley who saw a sinister side
in elephant jokes).
I kid you not about the latter . . . as the author notes:
* It is no accident that elephant jokes appeared around the beginning
of the civil rights movement, he said. Consider the parallels between
the elephant and the white stereotype of the black: the association
with the jungle, the potential for violence, the idea of unusually large
genitals and corresponding sexual capacity. "You can see this even
in the seemingly most nonsensical jokes," he said. "Why did the
elephant sit on the marshmallow? So he wouldn't fall into the cocoa.
That reflects the white person's fear of blacks moving into his
neighborhood--they're trying to sit on the white oasis in the chocolate,
so to speak. This joke was being told at a time when even liberals felt
anxious about the effects of integration." I confessed to Dundes that
I found his interpretation a tad, well, oversubtle. But he insisted that
there was plenty of anecdotal data in its favor. "When a psychiatrist
friend of mine asked his black secretary if she knew any elephant
jokes, she said, 'Why would we tell them? They're about us.' "
Holt also presents a wide variety of jokes, including these:
* There are jokes about musical instruments, especially the viola,
which seems to be especially despised in the world of classical music.
(Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the viola recital.
Or, in a more esoteric vein, How was the canon invented? When two violists
attempted to play in unison.)
* There are short jokes, some with a single-syllable punch line. (What's
brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!) There is even the rare joke
consisting of only two words. ("Pretentious? Moi?").
* But what of the pun, widely and perhaps justly regarded as the lowest
form of humor? (Vladimir Nabokov, when told by a professor of English
that a nun who was auditing one of the professor's classes had complained
that two students in the back of the classroom were "spooning" during
a lecture: "You should have said, 'Sister, you're lucky they weren't
forking.' ") Well, one might say that in wordplay we are enjoying
our superiority to language or reason. But now the superiority theory
has become elastic to the point of meaninglessness.
STOP ME might not be the funniest book you'll ever read; however,
I do believe that with respect to jokes, it will be one of the most
thought-provoking.
PHILOSOPHY OF JOKES by Jim Holt reminded me of many papers
that my students submit . . there seems to be 142 pages, but after
you subtract a bibliography, credits and an index, you are down
to 126 pages . . . take away another 24 pages for illustrations,
and you're down to 102 pages in a smallish 4.5 x 7 format with
very wide margins.
However, don't be put off by what seems to be a lack
of material . . . what is presented is interesting, as well as fun . . . and
you'll learn perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about such
individuals as Gershon Legman (the encylopedist of the dirty joke), Nat
Schmulowitz (the most prodigious joke collector of all time) and Alan
Dundes (the "joke professor" of Berkeley who saw a sinister side
in elephant jokes).
I kid you not about the latter . . . as the author notes:
* It is no accident that elephant jokes appeared around the beginning
of the civil rights movement, he said. Consider the parallels between
the elephant and the white stereotype of the black: the association
with the jungle, the potential for violence, the idea of unusually large
genitals and corresponding sexual capacity. "You can see this even
in the seemingly most nonsensical jokes," he said. "Why did the
elephant sit on the marshmallow? So he wouldn't fall into the cocoa.
That reflects the white person's fear of blacks moving into his
neighborhood--they're trying to sit on the white oasis in the chocolate,
so to speak. This joke was being told at a time when even liberals felt
anxious about the effects of integration." I confessed to Dundes that
I found his interpretation a tad, well, oversubtle. But he insisted that
there was plenty of anecdotal data in its favor. "When a psychiatrist
friend of mine asked his black secretary if she knew any elephant
jokes, she said, 'Why would we tell them? They're about us.' "
Holt also presents a wide variety of jokes, including these:
* There are jokes about musical instruments, especially the viola,
which seems to be especially despised in the world of classical music.
(Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the viola recital.
Or, in a more esoteric vein, How was the canon invented? When two violists
attempted to play in unison.)
* There are short jokes, some with a single-syllable punch line. (What's
brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!) There is even the rare joke
consisting of only two words. ("Pretentious? Moi?").
* But what of the pun, widely and perhaps justly regarded as the lowest
form of humor? (Vladimir Nabokov, when told by a professor of English
that a nun who was auditing one of the professor's classes had complained
that two students in the back of the classroom were "spooning" during
a lecture: "You should have said, 'Sister, you're lucky they weren't
forking.' ") Well, one might say that in wordplay we are enjoying
our superiority to language or reason. But now the superiority theory
has become elastic to the point of meaninglessness.
STOP ME might not be the funniest book you'll ever read; however,
I do believe that with respect to jokes, it will be one of the most
thought-provoking.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jim Holt, always good!
The book is short and sweet, two essays with some pictures.
Jim Holt has a way of writing which always leaves room for further thought and exploration. Read more
Jim Holt has a way of writing which always leaves room for further thought and exploration. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Yvon
2.0 out of 5 stars
not what it is cracked up to be
I am always intrigued by what makes me laugh. Laughter as a concept is very peculiar. Why do we react in a certain way when we find something funny? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Reid Mccormick
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thinking About Laughing Is Enough To Make You Laugh
Usually history and laughter don't go together, but in this case they do. To tell you the truth this book isn't much of an annotation, but that might be because there isn't a lot... Read more
Published 8 months ago by BobReviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
disappointing
I wanted to like this book, but was very disappointed. Not as funny as it should have been. By the title I expected more, but maybe that was the joke.
Published 8 months ago by Michael Hatziemmanuel
1.0 out of 5 stars
No stars for this one (except the one that was mandatory)
I don't remember where I heard about this book but was quite nauseated with the content. There's really nothing funny here and mostly vulgar, dull, obscene trash. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mona Brafman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Humour and Understanding
This book is a good read for any serious :-) amateur philosopher. I cannot speak for real philosophers but my favourite one recommended it in is his blog. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Juan Pineda
4.0 out of 5 stars
What makes us laugh?
Books about what makes us laugh have the reputation of not being particularly funny. At least this one has some jokes and the virtue of shortness. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Bruce I. Kodish
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining but not particularly informative
The discussion of the history of jokes is interesting and contains several amusing examples, but is limited to Europe and post-colonial America, beginning with Ancient Greece, not... Read more
Published on March 17, 2011 by Carolanna
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good breezy read
Stop me is an interesting, light, entertaining read for those interested in more than simply laughing but some of the history of the jokes we tell today. Read more
Published on November 15, 2009 by S. M. McMillion
4.0 out of 5 stars
A short and well timed mix of discussion and jokes
One joke after another would get stale. The author breaks it up just about right. A joke then a little discussion about where jokes come from and various theories about jokes and... Read more
Published on February 5, 2009 by andris virsnieks
