Wittier than the Sword

As we zoom through life at breakneck speed, tweeting, tweaking, only occasionally speaking, preening at and dusting down our profiles, as if they were our favourite party pants, treating laptops with a respect once afforded only to maiden aunts in the annuls of P G Wodehouse, we should, perhaps, halt for a moment, gather our senses and salute literary titans such as the aforesaid Wodehouse, who’ve made us laugh and will continue to do so whether we’re turning pages, fiddling with gadgets or listening to an audio cd whilst tweeting, tweaking or twittering.

Take this passage from Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop:

“Have you had a bad night, ma’am?” asked Nell

“I seldom have anything else,” replied Mrs Jarley, with the air of a martyr. “I sometimes wonder how I bear it.”

Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the caravan in which the proprietress of the waxworks passed the night, Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake.

Or later, apt comment that could have been written yesterday about the vagaries of the law, but was, in fact, written more than 150 years ago:

“…Doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so Lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account, knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person.”

Remember, this was an age before bikini lines, a little before bikinis, too.

Shakespeare, a master of characterisation, had a turn of phrase that enraptured his and successive ages. Although primarily a constructor of tragedies, his comedies still bring forth a wry smile far beyond the environs of Stratford-Upon-Avon. And it wasn’t just his comedies. Who could forget his cutting edge interpretation of a pound of flesh in The Merchant of Venice? Doth not the taxman still demandeth it now?

Jonathan Swift, a satirist of Swiftian proportions (sic), must be mildly tickled by contemporary use of one of his most hateful creatures in this internet age. The Yahoos in Gullivers Travels were obsessed with treasures, fought among themselves, were lazy unless forced to work, coveted each others’ goods and chattels and were greedy, avaricious and lustful. Not so very different from certain members (and former members) of our esteemed Parliament.

Yahoos, indeed. Shame he didn’t have a chance to Google them.

More recent tomes such as Spike Milligan’s Hitler: My Part In His Downfall and Ben Elton’s Chart Throb – “blisteringly funny” according to his publicist – have continued the tradition. But too often cerebral works with little or no witty undercurrents, win major literary awards. It’s about time judges started consulting their funnybones before announcing the winners.

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