AUTHOR'S ERRORS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1933, Page 13

AUTHOR'S ERRORS

FUN AND THE WORLD

ON CHOOSING STORIES

MONKHOTJSE EEFLECTS

Is fun going out of the world —my world? I hope not, but the disquieting question comes to me after reading "My Funniest Story," which has p nl just been published, -writes Allan Monk, house in the ''Manchester Guardian." / These stories, we are told, have been chosen by their authors, and there are two dozen of them. If lam not mis- , taken several of these authors are dead, "*< and I do not know how that difficulty of has been overcome. I am disconcert- r j^ ed to find that the reading of the book p has been a rather, melancholy occupa- . tion, and I do not know whether to Cii blame most myself or the authors, most of whom are notable people. Tremen- re , dous efforts are made to keep up the .' world's standards of fun, and there can YJ( be no doubt that funny stories are Ti sometimes funny. But an anthology of }ja them, and particularly one in which j^ you can imagine an author behind each in an attitude suggesting, "This ought to fetch "em," is not reassuring. Funny co men, I suppose, are born, v but much s {] can be done by study and practice to make them. It must need some selfconfidence to come up to time with your cc jokes; the '.'Punch" people have to be hf as regular as the milkman. In these se stories the professional fun-makers . show, sometimes,-how well they know , their business. . h( FUN OR COMEDY? Ci Are all these authors quite honest P1 about it? Is it possible to make a dis- cc tinction between your funniest story fl and your best funny story? Funniness _ ( has degrees and kinds; there is a fun- " ainess of the sun and of. the moon, of J* Falstaff and of the buttered slide. Per- tr haps "Falstaff is not a good example of gj the funny. The great figures- of com- ■ edy are hardly that. Would you call J Malvolio's reading of the letter funny? 1 I think not. Sancho Panza may be ti > fnnny, but not Don Quixote. Of course, jj 1 you cannot "keep comedy and fun in . ! watertight compartments. Bichard Fey- " ' erel and Eipton seem to me very funny L. ' in their quarrel, but the scene has the t£ i fineness of comedy. Mr. Wells's Pye- $ ' craft tacking his carpet on to the ceil- ~ ' ing is excellent fun, but it is not com- " ' edy. It seems, indeed, that the noun k 1 has got into higher company than the p ! adjective, that the comic may not al- jy ways become, comedy. /- It' would bo sad to think one had '- j not retained a boyish sense of fun. v I Mine was stimulated by the works of jp 3 Artcmus Ward. If I read him now g I suppose that some of the jokes would 3 seem very thin, but I still retain a * 3 conviction of his funniness. I passed I on to Dickens, whose fun is yet a de- c I light. Boys are on the look-out for . ! fun, and so is the world generally. The 1 writer of serious comedy can hardly get V f on because his audience is so eager to t .. persuade him that he is making uproarious- jokea. - MEREDITH'S PART. , lam not prepared with definitions of 6 fun and comedy. Micawber is a great t. comic character, and he is funny; Sir 1 Willoughby Patterne is a greater, and he is not funny. The crisis of Mere- ; dith's comedy is charged with trail gedy, and there is hardly a question of , laughter; at the most it is "thoughtr ful laughter" that he induces. Of course, such characters as Master Gam- • 0 mon and Mrs. Chump are funny enough. J c ■ This "botik begins very well with a s 6 story by Mr. Wodehouse. It is called t r "Honeysuckle Cottage," and it is \ f about the occult influence exerted by a 2 3 departed lady who wrote sentimental ' s stories. Everyone who comes to the c t cottage is stricken with an appalling f sentimentality. It'never rises to comn edy, but it is great fun. Earnest souls x might find recreation in it, but, like v dram-drinking, such reading should be c used with discretion. And then comes ir Mr. Wells'a "Truth About Pyecraft," b, which is an admirable example of fun ie qualified by ingenuity. This is iollowle ed by a good deal that is middling or r. below. You may pick out things of n interest, of course. Mr. Boland Pertie wee has a conversation between two y trout. The transfer of human emotions , ts to fish is not an easy operation, and he hardly attempts it; there is an ingen- j ious display of fishing technique, but why should it be called, funny? And lS here is Lord Dunsany, whose story has Le virtues but not any funniness that I can cf detect. Tun is superficial, and though " this story may not be profound it is \ e romantic, rather ghastly, uncanny. ,a SHOULD NOT DO IT. to • I cannot, get on with stories which x- tell me that women are kittle cattle v- or say that the hero's "fine teeth bit ie hard on the lower lip.." Mr. G. A. Bir. a mingham and Mr. J. J. Bell are old th. hands ?it the funny story, and they play Iy up to their professional reputation. Mr. is Gilbert Frankau has a spirited account ill of a hunting-man's mad gallop across x- country, but I cannot find a funny line 3d or the pretence of a funny line in it. id And what is Miss Stella Benson doing ie in this galley? "The Man Who Fell in «) Love With the Co-operative Stores" to seems to promise fun, but is it possible to that anyone could bo amused by this? A blight seems to have fallen on this m accomplished and brilliant lady. Other ke pieces—l dare not mention the names lT' of the authors—seem to me very nearly >l.c drivel. Ah, but ..here is Mr. W. W. h0 Jacobs, and you can depend upon him. >*" No funny writer is so impeccable; he 8^- does not have funny inspirations, he na just goes on being funny. And Leonard er" Merrick's "Epic of the Heavenly Cook" is an ingenious piece of artificial comedy. he Perhaps it is all my fault, though I rat 'think not. There is something to be [efl said for the abolition —or^at least the jt discouragement—of funniness, but we ors must stick to comedy. I suppose they rto are inseparable. And, after all, funny , n + things do happen; life does its best j he to hold its own with fiction. We may I" j s be grateful to those who aro doing their De l best for us, but we must not permit f on them to choose their own funny stories.