Rationale of the Dirty Joke (Hardcover)

~ Gershon Legman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Like The Brothers Karamazov, only pronounceable, and funny!"

-- Carrie Fisher --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

"Like The Brothers Karamazov, only pronounceable, and funny!"

-- Carrie Fisher --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape (August 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0224616625
• ISBN-13: 978-0224616621
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,739,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bargain at any Price, March 27, 2001

By	Stephen M. Kerwick (Wichita, KS United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book and its companion volume No Laughing Matter (actually a set of two) have been out of print for some time, and I cannot begin to understand why. Even with all of the opportunities for sale on the Internet, I would not part with my copies for a thousand dollars. Since the works are a pair, I will add what I wrote on the companion volume, which is equally applicable here.

Do you have a compelling interest in Freudian or Jungian analyses of vulgar humor? If so this is the book for you. If not, don't stop yet. Do you simply like dirty jokes? This may be for you too, but will probably be a bit on the esoteric expensive side. Do you have a cultural or literary interest in the development and similarity of dirty joke themes around the western world and throughout history? If so, these are (there are 2 volumes) absolutely the resource that you can't do without. Both your sense of humor and higher instincts for the scholarly will be amply rewarded. Additionally, if you have the warped or puerile sense of entertainment by the irony of juxtaposing the elevated with the profane, Legman will become your favorite author. One caution: if you have some sensitivity about the coarse and obscene, limit yourself to the first volume. The second moves more into the areas of sexual perversion and body function humor and accordingly is less suited to delicate sensitivities....

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Case You Were Wondering Why Those Dirty Jokes Are Funny.., January 17, 1999

By A Customer

Proof that academicians can turn any subject into a scholarly study; Legman, an anthropologist, catalogs dirty jokes by type, then traces their history back to ancient folklore, explaining the sources, variations and history. This is a book that works on two levels; if you're really interested in learning that farmer's daughter jokes have a precedent in 12th Century literature, then you won't be disappointed. On the other hand, if you just want to read the good parts and skip the analysis, the book's format makes that easy to do, too. It's unfortunate that both volumes of the "Rationale" are out of print, because they belong in the collection of anyone who's interested in the "more things change the more they stay the same" theory of history, as well as those who just want good jokes to tell people around the water cooler or via email.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, March 15, 1999

By A Customer

I first read this book in college in the early 70's and thoroughly enjoyed this and the 2nd volume for both their literary and scatalogical merit. I just read that Gershon Legman died on Feb 23, 1999 at age 81 at a hospital near his home in Opio, France. Nice obit in NYT, Sunday 3/14/99.

I hope his scholarship and fight against censorship will motivate some publisher to re-issue these two classics.