American Cornball

[Becky Lindroos]

I don’t know if anyone is old enough to have read "American Humor: A Study of the National Character”  by Constance Rourke (1931 but a classic) which I read in college as a history major.  

Rourke identified the character of the "Yankee” as the first American comic and I see Cherrycoke as having some of the characteristics of this archetype.  

From the link below: 
“ had grown up under the watchful eye of his fellow Puritans and had learned to hide his playfulness beneath a social mask. His speech was quirky by design. He drawled out such lines as "If you catch me there agin, you'll catch a white weasel asleep, I tell you." He typically answered one question with another, in order to prolong conversation without giving anything away.

But she also describes the "frontiersman ,” and the “minstrel” and their relationship to the culture as a whole.  We were couuntry bumpkins to the rest of the world  - but proud of it to ourselves as long as we could make a buck. 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/03/28/whats_so_funny_about_americans_anyway/?page=full

That was such a great book and it was rereleased in 2004 so I’m tempted to get it - okay,  I got it.  lol 

Bekah 


> On Jan 21, 2015, at 7:22 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> http://americancornball.tumblr.com
> 
> http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062225177/american-cornball
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l