NP humour question

[John Bailey]

Haven't heard of the five basic underlying jokes, but there's another site 
which lists comedy as...
1 Pain
2 The Unexpected
3 Lies and Other Untruths
4 Wordplay
5 Puns

http://rinkworks.com/funny/

I don't imagine you could get much more specific than this sort of thing; at 
least, if you look at other ancient theories of drama (twelve basic dramatic 
plotlines or whatever) and later incarnations of same, you get that feeling 
that as a taxonomic system, as a classificatory tool, yeah, sure, but it 
doesn't help a writer, it rarely helps a reader and it can really hurt a 
critic.

I was idly comparing M&D to Propp's classic breakdown of fairy tale 
structure (a version at www.uky.edu/~jrouhie/rae370_proppmagic.html)
as the repeated mention of the interdiction represented by the Seahorse part 
of the tale held, for me, echoes of the interdiction which is presented to 
the hero at the outset of a tale (in Propp's analysis). Also, the 'magical 
animal' that helps the hero and several other details reminded me of the 
opening chapters of M&D.

I didn't go very far down this road, deciding instead to take the road not 
taken, ie lunch downstairs and a vague dismissal of any Propp-erly Written 
M&D, but for people into that thing, hurrah.

>From: "David Gentle" <Gentle_Family at btinternet.com>
>To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: NP humour question
>Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 22:52:07 +0100
>
> > What's wrong with Legman now?
> >
> > /Thomas
>Nothing that I know of. Internet comunications are fraught with 
>misunderstanding and it's very
>difficult to read the tone of people you don't know. Anyway. I was looking 
>for (and still seek) the
>five basic underlying jokes. Did he classify them?
>
>David Gentle




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