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YA humor
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From: GWoelfle at aol.com <GWoelfle>
Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 01:07:35 EDT
Several people have noted that humor is more prevalent in books for younger readers than in YA novels. This has to do, perhaps, with both the themes and the audience of these books. I've just read two new YA novels: FEED by M.T. Anderson and THREE CLAMS AND AN OYSTER by Randy Powell. While they both contain several different kinds of humor, they are not just funny. Both deal with serious, even frightening, issues as well. Perhaps this is because teenagers are more able to perceive nuance -- the comic in the serious, the seriousness of comedy. Also the focus of the humor in these two books -- and other YA books as well -- is different from the humor in younger-age books. People have noted here that very young books tend to evoke humor from the sounds of words. Chapter books and middle grade novels often rely on situational humor. The two novels I mentioned -- both with first person narrators -- evoke humor from the characters themselves. Perhaps teenagers are self-reflexive enough to recognize and laugh at their own foibles that they see portrayed in the characters. This, however, is usually tempered by a bit of shame?ced embarrassment in the narrators and presumably in the readers too. When we laugh at ourselves, it's not usually a loud belly laugh, but a nervous twitter. Anderson creates a bizarre techno world in FEED that is both funny and horrifying. The teenagers are the same as us and yet so strange that the humor is.... sobering. Powell, in THREE CLAMS AND AN OYSTER, as in all his other novels, has constructed a compelling character-driven novel that addresses serious psychological turning points by means of funny scenes that are poignant as well. His latest novel is a departure, in that there are three protagonists -- the "Clams" -- onstage nearly all the time, so the novel becomes a sort of contemporary comedy of manners with swift repartee filling the pages. The characters laugh at each other and even at themselves while we laugh at them and at ourselves as reflected in them. This YA humor is saturated with many different emotions
-- not the just-plain-funny found in books for younger children.
Gretchen Woelfle
Received on Sun 19 May 2002 12:07:35 AM CDT
Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 01:07:35 EDT
Several people have noted that humor is more prevalent in books for younger readers than in YA novels. This has to do, perhaps, with both the themes and the audience of these books. I've just read two new YA novels: FEED by M.T. Anderson and THREE CLAMS AND AN OYSTER by Randy Powell. While they both contain several different kinds of humor, they are not just funny. Both deal with serious, even frightening, issues as well. Perhaps this is because teenagers are more able to perceive nuance -- the comic in the serious, the seriousness of comedy. Also the focus of the humor in these two books -- and other YA books as well -- is different from the humor in younger-age books. People have noted here that very young books tend to evoke humor from the sounds of words. Chapter books and middle grade novels often rely on situational humor. The two novels I mentioned -- both with first person narrators -- evoke humor from the characters themselves. Perhaps teenagers are self-reflexive enough to recognize and laugh at their own foibles that they see portrayed in the characters. This, however, is usually tempered by a bit of shame?ced embarrassment in the narrators and presumably in the readers too. When we laugh at ourselves, it's not usually a loud belly laugh, but a nervous twitter. Anderson creates a bizarre techno world in FEED that is both funny and horrifying. The teenagers are the same as us and yet so strange that the humor is.... sobering. Powell, in THREE CLAMS AND AN OYSTER, as in all his other novels, has constructed a compelling character-driven novel that addresses serious psychological turning points by means of funny scenes that are poignant as well. His latest novel is a departure, in that there are three protagonists -- the "Clams" -- onstage nearly all the time, so the novel becomes a sort of contemporary comedy of manners with swift repartee filling the pages. The characters laugh at each other and even at themselves while we laugh at them and at ourselves as reflected in them. This YA humor is saturated with many different emotions
-- not the just-plain-funny found in books for younger children.
Gretchen Woelfle
Received on Sun 19 May 2002 12:07:35 AM CDT
