OUR HUMOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 103, 2 May 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR HUMOUR.

WHERE IS IT?

N.Z. ANl> AUSTRALIAN REFLECTIONS. t#

(By CYRANO.)

If you went into the office of a London publisher with a fifst-class serious novel he would shake you warmly by the hand; if you offered him a firstclass humorous story, he. would probably break through his English reserve and kiss you. Every publisher is looking for humour, but the pre-eminence of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse shows that in popular form it is in short supply. There is none like him, none. It is, in racing language, a case of Wodehouse first and Daylight second.

The position in New Zealand is very much worse. Among all the lectures that are being given in the various centres in connection with Authors' Week, there may be one on New Zealand humour, hut I haven't noticed it. The title probably would be "Our Lack of Humour." And at this time there comes from Australia the result of the radio play competition, conducted by the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Just under 400 entries were received, and the best of them, in the opinion of the judges, reached "a very high standard indeed," but "humour was at a low ebb. Very few plays made it the spearhead of their attack, despite the example of the ayerage talking film, which frequently relies on sheer brilliant dialogue to buoy up a hackneyed plot." It is the same among our own growing band of playwrights. Take up the annual volume of selected New Zealand plays, and you will find hardly one comedy. Our writers for the stage are earnest and ambitious, but they are also very serious minded. They seldom joke.

Humour in Novels. Our novelists are in a somewhat better case. There is humour in Katherine Mansfield, and gleams of it in Miss Nelle Scanlan's "Pencarrow trilo°T. Some of our novelists, however, have none at all. There is most, perhaps, in "John Guthrie's The Little Country," and perhaps this accounts largely'for the popularity of the book. Mr. Guthrie laughs both at us and with us,'and he is always kindly. Some of his characters are funny, and he is perhaps our only living writer of fiction who can write amusing dialogue. Generally speaking, humour is rare m our literature, as I think you will agree if you study the collections of books made for Authors' Week. W. P. Reeves wrote with polished wit. Probably the wittiest and most hujporous of all our books is Alper's "Cheerful Yesterdays, ■' a wonderful achievement for a man who was dying and knew it. "Cheerful Yesterdays," however, is interpretative and not creative. It would be difficult to name any scene in our literature that produces hearty laughter —or any verse. Our most popular native piece of recitation is "Not Understood." Australia can beat us in humour. It has Dad and "The Sentimental Bloke" and "How MacDougall Topped the Score." Nothing would drag me to a concert or a party if "MaicDougall" was in prospect, but I know a''young New Zealander who has recited it to delighted audiences for years. In this Australian stuff there is racy. of the soil. Whera.arfi. jour- 'eketelies and tiallads?

Humour Despised. It is a paradox that while the world is crying out for first-class humour, and even second and third class if it is original, humour is widely despised. The humorist, whether he creates or interprets, is nearly always ranked below the "serious" writer. Just as humour in a public' man is sometimes fatal to him, so the pursuit of humour in art is considered by many to be a lowering of ideals, something not quite respectable. "Cannot the clergy be Irishmen too?" Certainly not. Congratulate a repertory player who has just taken part in a riotous farce, and he may smile deprccatingly. "My dear fellow, good fun, of course, but I am looking forward to 'Pallid Souls."' We are told that comedy is artificial and farce crude, by people who forget that there are joy and laughter in life as well as tears. Why should the truth of life be supposed to consist entirely of viciousness, frustration- jand death? Our one distinguished New Zealand playwright, whom for the moment I had forgotten, knows better. I have heard some of Dr. Merton Hodge's countrymen speak rather slightingly of "The "Wind and the Rain. Perhaps if there were a seduction or two (I pass over the off-stage amours of the comic man as not our concern), an adultery and a suicide, such critics would think more of the play. Its success lies in its presentation of a slice of life that is at once humorous and pathetic. The comic man is the eternal comic man of boardinghouse and lodginghouse life, though it is simply appalling to think of him being let loose to practise on the public. The landlady is the eternal foster mother of young students. The hero works and suffers like thousands of others. It is all very simple and natural, and you wonder perhaps where the art is, but it is there. A comedy like this, which has captured the world, is probably more difficult to write than a play about divorce, or hereditary disease, or Socialism.

Contrast and Character. It must he admitted that there are special difficulties in the way of developing humour in our literature. We haven't the rustics that Mr. Eden Philpotts uses with such ■ skill, nor the squire to make a foil to them. We haven't the social sophistication in which a certain kind of comedy is bred. The brilliant, highly intellectualised dialogue that Dorothy Sayers writes so delightfully, as in her latest book "Gaudy Night," is the product of a specialised society. Our social landscape is flatter and more uniform than England's, and contrast and incongruity make humour. We shall develop our humour as we develop our national type. Australia is doing so. There is a distinctive type of Australian humour, and it seems to be closer to the Latin culture than to the English. There is no contrast in the world of humour sharper than that between "Punch" and the "Bulletin." We shall make our own humour in our own quiet way. Meanwhile signs of development would be welcome. There must be material for humour on our farms, in our politics, arid in our continuous struggle for social eminence. But-let it not be all satire. That bitter drink is a necessary tonic, but not a nourishing diet, yet some of our clever young people are wedded to it. One may reasonably ask for some strong "straight" laughter, something that will clear and. brace .heart and-mind.