, and apologies but this Italian review is apparently the only review of the book that you can find without diving too deep into Google Search), and, apart from being a hilarious though thought-provoking reading, it seems to be the best critique of a literal interpretation of the idea of sublimation. Many people believe they follow Freud if they think that having sex casts the bad spell on one’s creativity; hence, if one wants to be a successful writer, they first and foremost must stop engaging in that carnal activity. Moravia subtly reminds us that sex does start in one’s head, so while you keep listening to your libido, even if you don’t necessarily follow it, sex goes on.
So, back to legs. Some time ago one actor had an online meeting with his fans. One question was if he liked telling jokes. The answer was positive, and such was one of his favourite ones: “Right leg says to the left leg: “Listen, let’s keep this one between us””.
Now, personally I find this joke funny, as well as everyone who I told it to. But it struck me today that sometimes blogs are being assessed on the level of humour in them. I scratched my head. I certainly wrote some posts that I consider funny, but humour is a difficult thing to estimate. The joke I alluded to is a perfect example here in that it begs the question of exactly what makes it funny. It is as ambiguous as it gets, but it is the ambiguity and the wittiness that make this joke work, at least as far as I am concerned. Undoubtedly though there are those who may disagree, so the question “what makes a joke funny” is indeed rhetorical.
I think there is always some prejudice against a “national” sense of humour. They say that the English humour is difficult to understand. Years ago with this thought in mind I was translating Russian jokes with gusto to a friend of mine, who eventually said, looking aside: “What exactly is funny about it?” That was the day when I realised that the Russian humour is probably just as difficult as English.
To an extent, it was a relief. I was even engulfed by some kind of pride, or at least joy, that a Russian joke can send an Englishman in exactly the same kind of stupor that people from many non-English-speaking countries find themselves in when they hear an English joke. But the same problem occurs in other languages, and the French or Italian humour is no different. And because translation means a migration of a text from one culture to another, those who translate humour have, in fact, to translate an impulse to laugh, not just mere words or phrases. This is really tricky.
Anyway, I didn’t want to make this post too academic, so I’d better tell you a few of my favourite jokes, and I can only hope you find them funny. Somehow almost all of them are about trains, which makes sense, I suppose, since I do love travelling by train.
Two men are riding on the train. They ride in total silence for a long time. Finally, one of them decides to break the silence and says:
– Hello, I’m Smith. John Smith. And you?
– And I am not.
On the train, a man stands at the window in the corridor. Relaxed, he observes the landscape that flies past. Suddenly the train derails, drives across a field, stops at the forest, then turns, moves back, returns to the rails, and drives on, as if nothing happened. Perplexed, the man rushes to the train manager: “What’s going on?!” – “Ah well, you see, there was this man walking on the rails in front of the train”. – “Oh, but you should’ve run him over!” – “Well, that’s it, I only got him near the forest”.
A station warden, while checking the rails, finds on them a rat that was killed by the train. He lifts it by the tail: “Oh for god’s sake, look at this! D’you think you’re Anna Karenina, or what?”