'I'm Not a Funny Man'

 “All writers that are worth anything are humorists.”

 It’s one of those preposterously broad observations you want to immediately endorse or dismiss, but if “humor” is defined liberally and we accept it as a spectrum ranging from the driest wit to slapstick, farce and bawdy, Vladimir Nabokov may be on to something. Much of the best humor implies a nuanced understanding of the world, the ability to see comedy in tragedy and vice versa – the essence of literary accomplishment. The humorless are earnest and literal-minded, leaving little room for a good laugh. Nabokov continues in his interview:

 

“I’m not P.G. Wodehouse. I’m not a funny man, but give me an example of a great writer who is not a humorist. The best tragedian is Eugene O’Neill. He is probably the worst writer. Dostoevsky’s slapstick is wonderful, but in his tragedy he is a journalist.”

 

He passes no critical judgment on Wodehouse, with whom he has much in common, including a wayward disregard for “realism” and a foregrounding of verbal humor. He’s surprisingly forgiving here of Dostoevsky, referred to by Nabokov in Despair as “Dusky and Dusty.” Humor is often rooted in our attraction to and terror of incipient anarchy. Think of Laurel and Hardy, whose films are reliably about disaster and their futile attempts to contain or avoid it.

 

Nabokov goes on to say, wisely, “You really can’t define humor,” and adds, “Perhaps humor is simply seeing things in a singular, unique, extraordinary way. This almost sounds funny to the average person.” To note the obvious, Nabokov is the author of the funniest and saddest books in the language: Lolita, Pnin and Pale Fire. Near the end he states one of my literary articles of faith:

 

“To be a real reader, you have to reread a book. The first time, the book is new. It may be strange. Actually, it is only the second reading that matters.”

 

[Nabokov’s 1962 interview with Phyllis Meras for the Providence Sunday Journal is collected in Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor (eds. Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, 2019).]