Joking Asides: The Theory, Analysis, and Aesthetics of Humor

Joking Asides: The Theory, Analysis, and Aesthetics of Humor. By Elliott Oring. (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2016. Pp. xiii + 282, preface, afterword, references, notes, bibliography, author bio, index. $34.95 paperback.)Joke theorists, beware! If you're going to publish a new theory of humor and jokes, know that your work will soon be in Elliott Oring's crosshairs. All to the good, of course: any decent theory deserves a critique that can identify its weaknesses and suggest improvements. Four recent theories-the General Theory of Verbal Humor, Conceptual Integration Theory (Blending Theory), Benign Violation Theory, and False-Belief Theory-come under Oring's scrutiny. All are found wanting in various ways, primarily due to neglect or marginalization of the concept of appropriate incongruity. This last is less a full-blown theory than a working hypothesis, and Oring himself notes that it "is only a better formulation of what is going on" (215) than what other scholars of humor have come up with in addressing the question "What is humor?" However, the concept is so demonstrably instrumental in evaluating the way jokes work that any worthwhile theory of humor needs to deal with it, either by examples that justify its inapplicability or by incorporating it as an essential insight and improving upon it.The question of how jokes work, and the concept of appropriate incongruity, have been themes in Oring's earlier collections of essays: Jokes and Their Relations (1992) and Engaging Humor (2003) reveal an earthy appreciation ofjokes, not as museum pieces, but as the heart of verbal interaction. The title of his 1992 book alludes, of course, to Freud's groundbreaking Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905). Oring pays homage to Freud throughout his work on humor, and the present collection is no exception, the title of the first essay being "What Freud Actually Said About Jokes."A collection o/jokes is not the same as an essay about jokes, as Oring himself has noted (2003), though some readers may expect the latter to be funny. Just as one does not expect a book about art to be aesthetically pleasing, we should not expect to find Chapter Six, "Framing Borat," by turns hilarious, disgusting, or disturbing. Nor is "Risky Business: Political Jokes in Repressive Regimes" itself risky (at least not yet). Nevertheless, what might have been a distanced and dry analysis is always leavened with jokes well reported (many of which have gone into this writer's repertoire). "Listing toward Lists: Jokes on the Internet," and "What is a Narrative Joke?" neatly juxtapose two joke forms at extremes of presentational format. Internet joke lists present a simple joke setup followed by a list of alternative punch lines, sometimes framed as a single verbal response to an earlier action established in the setup, as in the bishop's comments on an inebriated priest's sermon. …