Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Looking for chuckles in two of the latest humor books

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, May 21, 1999 | 9:51 a.m.

Comedy is not petty. Humor is one of the pillars of modern self-definition -- these days, there are few more damning accusations than "You have no sense of humor."

Humor comes in every flavor, from "funny ha-ha" to "funny hmmm" to "that's sick," but we're all convinced we know it when we see it.

So it's a wonder that the humor shelves at the local bookstore aren't more interesting. Their contents seem to be divided into three categories: "1001 Uses for a Dead (Blank)," books by comedians and "Dilbert." Aside from a few proven commodities -- Christopher Buckley, Dave Barry, P.J. O'Rourke -- there appears to be very little funny business by real writers.

This line of thought was prompted by a pair of new and very different humor collections that recently landed here at the Shelf Life scriptorium: "Love Trouble," by the late Veronica Geng (Mariner Books, $14), and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," by Bill Bryson (Broadway Books, $25).

Geng's book arrives with something of a highbrow pedigree. She was for years a highly regarded fiction editor at the New Yorker, and, according to a story about her in last week's New York magazine, she dazzled literary Big Apple with her astringent intellect, creative fearlessness and sultry nature.

"Love Trouble" has most of those qualities, notably a fierce braininess. The piece "Love Trouble is My Business," for instance, is a detective-fiction parody in which Geng contrived to include the phrases "Mr. Reagan" and "read Proust" in every sentence. "My Mao" purports to be the memoir of a mistress of the Chinese dictator; at one point, mindful of his bad back, Mao tells her, "Please don't squeeze the Chairman."

The longish piece "Lobster Night" shows Geng at the peak of her form. In it, two couples pair and re-pair at a long series of night spots. It's a gem of batty surrealism and off-kilter aphorisms -- "I felt guilty about betraying Earl, but there, in Stan's presence, I saw infidelity to be the act that makes fidelity possible for others." "Earl and Florine sent a message by cab announcing that they were coming over in a taxi."

For all that, though, you arrive at the end wondering, "What was that about?" At bottom, it -- like most of Geng's work -- is little more than an exercise in intellectual origami, folding "comic" pieces from tissues of pure ideas. It's the epitome of funny hmmm; brain humor.

"They felt as if they were created in a laboratory or an institute for advanced studies," one writer said of Geng's stories in the New York article. "They were funny, but they seemed like a mathematical achievement."

Bryson's book at least has the virtue of being about something. The author of the funny best-seller, "A Walk in the Woods," Bryson here collects the weekly columns he wrote for a British newspaper chronicling his return to America after 20 years on the Olde Sod.

Somewhat predictably, he trains a fish-out-of-water sensibility on the blandaries of American life: the U.S. Postal Service vs. the British, American television vs. British, American baseball vs. cricket -- ah, us crazy, wacky Americans and our big, nutty, lovable country!

Although Bryson's been known to apply some bite to his humor, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" largely displays an E.B. White-like gentle whimsy. Puzzling over the crazy, wacky, nutty figures in the "Statistical Abstract of the United States," Bryson concludes: "statistically in New Hampshire, I am far more likely to be injured by my ceiling or my underpants -- to cite two potentially lethal examples -- than by a stranger, and frankly, I don't find that comforting at all."

Yep, America, what a country! Such musings are best taken a few at a time, dipping into the book on the john or while waiting for the dental assistant to call you into the drill room.

To be fair, Bryson's doing his best with a bastard form, the newspaper column, wherein you don't often have the time, space or stylistic freedom to really let 'er rip. Newspaper humor is generally the province of hyperactive shtick-slingers such as Dave Barry or faded old horses such as Art Buchwald.

And Bryson does get in a good one now and then: "Postal employees are not just mindless automatons who spend their days mangling letters and whimsically sending my royalty checks to a guy in Vermont named Bill Bubba, but rather are dedicated, highly trained individuals who spend their days mangling letters and sending my royalty checks to a guy in Vermont named Bill Bubba." It's a long way to go for a punch line, but it's funny nonetheless.

Reading these two books side by side makes one wish for one volume that split the difference, applying intellectual rigor and absurdist silliness to actual lived experience. Now that would be funny -- unless, of course, you have no sense of humor.

Reading list

"The Immaculate Invasion," by Bob Shacochis (Viking, $27.95): It's Sunday afternoon and you've got an endorphin buzz going from the morning's public affairs shows; can't get enough finely detailed discussion of American foreign policy. This is the book for you.

Shacochis provides a sweepingly reported, exquisitely written account of the United States' confused 1994 invasion of Haiti. Luckily, this is no dull poli-sci thesis. Shacochis was on the ground, in the line of fire, and took copious notes. His interviews with generals and grunts, and his obvious sympathy for the brutally downtrodden of Haiti, make this a multilayered, important look at America's club-footed international presence.

National Geographic Adventure, May 1999: National Geographic seems determined to extend its brand beyond the venerable magazine of science and discovery. First it launched National Geographic Traveler, now this, a direct competitor to the wonderful Outside magazine.

This debut issue gets them off to a good start. Lawrence Gonzales contributes a sturdy profile of deep-sea explorer Bob Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic -- is he also a top-secret Navy spook?

And David Roberts finds himself on the trail of a young artist who disappeared into the Western desert in the '30s. The mag's quality should be no surprise -- the editor is Mark Bryant, until recently the top man at Outside.

The Paper, May 1999: The latest and lightest addition to the scatter of Las Vegas freebies, The Paper calls itself "Las Vegas' It Magazine." If, by "it," they mean "desperately crying out for content," then yeah, OK!

The Paper is a handsome glossy broadsheet, but when your main editorial material consists of three full-page pix of male models ("Meet three guys we exposed as undercover hotties"), a lame feature on spas and some product reviews, form has definitely left function waaaay behind.

Footnotes

There must have been some puzzled looks among the viewers of Sunday's New York Knicks-Miami Heat playoff game on NBC. Analyst Bill Walton described Heat center Alonzo Mourning as having "a Tom-Wolfe-novel-like life." You mean, filled with exclamation points?

Don't forget the big tent sale Memorial Day weekend at the Borders Books and Music outlet in Henderson, Sunset Road and Stephanie Street. There will be live entertainment, marked-down books and, if you're lucky, maybe some undercover hotties. Wouldn't that be funny? Call 433-6222.