ANDREI SINIAVSKI
365
miserable age and thereby will immortalize it. However, even the
joke eludes us . Similar to real folklore or oral poetry, it fades on
paper, losing its live voice , facial mimic, and the gestures that ac–
company it. Sometimes, in the manner of pantomime, these are its
only expressive means. Unlike other folkloric genres, which are
meant to be repeated many times over and fixed in folk memory, the
individual joke disappears quickly and is replaced by anew, more
pointed and current re5ponse. Its significance, vitality, mobility,
penetration, and historicity are all a function of the joke's novelty. So
is its fleeting nature . It flares up in a flash, burns quickly, and is
forgotten. Although at times we like to remember old jokes, we
always want to hear the latest edition . It is different with songs or
fairy tales, and it is not accidental that narrators of "bearded" jokes
are usually ridiculed. There is even ajoke regarding old jokes, which
serves our need to ridicule, while commemorating simultaneously
the splendid genre. The story about the Egyptian mummy is a com–
mon response to a bearded joke: "On a dig in Egypt somebody un–
covered a mummy with its hand shut tight in a fist. When the hand
was forced open, a scrap of papyrus was found with your joke on it!"
If
it weren't for one more characteristic feature of the joke,
perhaps the most important one, we could end our story here . I am
referring to the joke's philosophical relation to the world , to things,
to the old and the new, when the new is a variation on the old but is
nevertheless a
new
variant . We can imagine the joke in the form of
an endless chain which connects just about all possible human situa–
tions . It can be likened to Mendeleev's periodic table of elements
which has empty spaces for new valences as if for new jokes. The
heading for this chart consisting of humorous parables would read
something like "Human Existence" or "Human Reality ."
Because of its all-inclusiveness and philosophical tranquility in
relation to a dramatic event, the joke is perceived as a source of
wisdom . In this context, wisdom coincides so completely with humor
that humor becomes the fountain of wisdom. We discern in the joke
an indulgent and superior vision of life. It seems to me that this
characteristic feature is related to the reversibility of all phenomena
and things, an inversion which controls the soul of the joke and is in–
carnated in it - narratively, verbally, and materially - as in an ap–
propriate form. As a result, the joke becomes an advisor and helper,
an explanation and comfort in the most critical situations, as well as
for all occasions. Joke punch lines have become proverbs , contem–
porary idioms, and even wise sayings which are used to resolve argu–
ments and contradictions, sometimes conclusively exhausting them .
