Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Neither Fish nor Fowl, Although Sometimes Fishy and Often Foul

Humor is hard. Funny is difficult. And writing humor -- we'll refer here to a serious writer of humor, say, P. J. O'Rourke -- is neither nonfiction or fiction. It might be, in fact, a separate genre.

O'Rourke specializes in hyperbolic commentary on political matters -- "Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy" -- and I was reminded of his work when I read a piece in the Washington Post by Charles Lane, Rather Ridiculous.

What's interesting about the piece is that the opening segments mock Dan Rather's penchant for country-boy metaphors -- "... hotter than a hamburger on a hickory fire."

The piece then changes into an oblique attack on CBS, Rather, and the validity of his 24 years as the anchor of the network's evening newscast.

It is sly rather than funny, at least to me, and different from the nonsense of Dave Barry or the surrealism of Stephen Wright, but, as political or social commentary, it lacks the hard, biting, ironic edge of a writer who sees the world from that prism as a permanent point of view.

Again to O'Rourke.

"The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him 'a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself.' ... civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine."

Of course, Lane is a writer for the Post's editorial page, and so it is unfair to compare him to O'Rourke. Or Barry or Wright, for that matter.

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