Few genres repel me more than comedic writing when it announces itself too loudly. There is a certain strain of fiction, often labelled satire or humour, that mistakes bluntness for wit, delivering jokes with the subtlety of a bricklayer’s trowel.
Genuine, unforced humour, when it forms part of a writer’s voice rather than an end in itself, offers a rarer perspective: a way of approaching the human condition without distortion. This quality runs throughout The Essential Rebecca West.
In “The Novelist’s Voice,” West describes her father’s tutor, Elisée Reclus, a geographer and anarchist, who accepted a teaching post after mistaking his employer’s religious beliefs for revolutionary fervour. Discovering the truth, he remained correct and discreet, forming a bond with the family that lasted for life. West remarks that her grandmother’s bigotry inadvertently led to the hiring of the very tutor most likely to prevent her sons from becoming bigots themselves. The anecdote is characteristic of West’s method: she treats absurdity and affection side by side, capturing the randomness of life with a wit that never demands attention.
Her humour remains woven into the structure of her thought: precise, incisive, and deeply humane.
>I am started to ponder whether humour in books works for me, in general. I seem to be put off a lot lately by what is supposed to be "funny" but I just find tiresome.
>I can think of few attempts by writers to be funny that work. Writers with a good sense of humour reveal that aspect of themselves through their writing.