The world around us would be even more bleak without the presence and occurrence of rhythmic, vocalized, expiratory and involuntary actions, such as laughter. But why? Laughter does not necessarily mean that you’re happy, or even content. Perhaps that’s exactly why. Even in the deep pit of absolute misery, we can laugh with reckless abandon. We have such an ability to laugh, even if we may not always be cognizant of its existence. Some of the best laughs I’ve had have been in moments when life has pummeled me black and blue into a bloody mess of despair. That’s when you sometimes need to laugh the hardest to acknowledge that nothing at the end of the day seems quite so apocalyptic if you can simply laugh at it.
Far be it from me to bring upon thoughts of discontent and conflict in your soul each week, so I have reasons for you to laugh in this one. Knowing, and actually acknowledging, that everyone around is so much more than they first appear to be are two concepts that are too far apart. Such is the place Ali Smith attempts to draw us in with her satirical book, “There but for the.” She succeeds in exploring the inexplicable human need to connect with others on a night when a houseguest locks himself in the guest room at a party. Stringing together moments of laughter that sneak up on you, and a wicked wit, this book offers an oddly appealing combination of depth and humor. If for nothing else, it is worth reading for the following little gem: “ABBA songs, as anyone who knows knows, are constructed, technically and harmonically, so as to physically imprint the human brain as if biting it with acid, to ensure we will never, ever, ever, be able to forget them.”
Described as the “visionary we need and the satirist we deserve,” the author of the unparalleled “Fight Club” shows off his humor chops in “Choke.” Chuck Palahnuik is perhaps the only genius the term scatalogical does absolute justice to, seeing as I had to look the word up—you should as well but I digress. A nihilist and narcissist to a fault, Palahnuik takes great delight in being hated and any shred of negativity from the world only fuels his furor of amusement. And bless him, he always allows this to bleed into his writing. In Victor Mancini he seems to have found a protagonist a tad more disgusting than Tyler Durden, if it were even possible, and I like to think he takes maniacal pleasure in allowing us to enjoy him anyway. An unlovable loser who sometimes is no better than the dregs of gutter, you end up liking him and the book because you’re almost begged to hate it. Reading this book is like having Palahnuik shove his entire fist down your throat as he picks apart aging, death, insanity, anarchy and our deep seated need to be a savior, all while never losing even a modicum of his humor as apparent by this line: “My first time I jacked off, I thought I'd invented it. I looked down at my sloppy handful of junk and thought, this is going to make me rich.”
Ignatius J. Reilly is a character that won author John Kennedy Toole a Pulitzer for the masterful way he was crafted in “A Confederacy of Dunces.” It’s the comical legacy left behind Toole, who committed suicide before he could ever see the publication of his novel or what it would come to mean in the 20th century. As humanity has a darkly humorous streak of honoring those that most craved it for their talent only after they take their lives, it is no less fitting that Toole would be given such an accolade and memorial for the tormented life that he lived. But obviously only after he died, so that he can bask in it all the more from the cloudy heavens or the fiery pits—you be the judge. Hailed again and again as a modern day Quixote, Reilly is as comedic in his tragedy as he is selfish and full of delusions. A compulsive liar to a fault, everything in his life is stretched to grandiose proportions and utter buffoonery. But damn it if walking through the screamingly obnoxious episodes of his life, in search of a real job as he suffers through one mishap after another, does not have you laughing out loud. As in awe of his God-like attributes as he is self deprecating, Reilly is truly something else: “I suspect that I am the result of particularly weak conception on the part of my father. His sperm was probably emitted in a rather offhand manner.”
The world and people in it will fail you constantly, repeatedly and spectacularly. The only times they do not is when we can count on them to be a source of despair. It is a bleak view, but it is also a redeeming one. Bear with me, because if we can still live, still love and, most importantly, still laugh in the face of that it means that we still have hope. Being able to laugh through any tragedy that life throws at us, buries us under, is one such face of hope.
