Will Kaufman is a folk musician and professor of American studies at the University of Central Lancashire. He is the author of Woody Guthrie's Modern World Blues.
Comedian as Confidence Man is still the most important, insightful
read about comedy that I've ever found, especially my brand of
comedy and the inherent frustrations related to it. Elated to see
it back in print.--Doug Stanhope "fatigued comedian"
[The book] is at once a history and penetrating interpretation of
the complexities of humor and of the various individuals selected
for examination. Kaufman's analytic sweep of literary texts and
comic performances is wildly imaginative: Sinclair Lewis's Main
Street, Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, Benjamin Franklin's
literary confidence games, Herman Melville's The Confidence Man,
the routines of stand-up comics Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, the
works of Kurt Vonnegut, and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and
Pudd'nhead Wilson. In between are excellent insights into an array
of the most influential writers and stand-up comics.--Joseph Boskin
"American Studies Journal"
Highly readable and carefully documented.--Dana Rufolo-Horhager
"American Studies in Europe"
The Comedian as Confidence Man breaks new ground, not only in
interpreting works that have been exhaustively mined, but in making
us see new relationships in comic performance that cut across
media. Such a foray can only encourage new approaches to the study
of American humor.--Thomas Grant "University of Hartford"
The Comedian as Confidence Man is a lively, fascinating analysis of
humorists and their work which examines the humorist's internal
conflict between the social critic who demands to be taken
seriously and the comedian who never can be -- the irony fatigue
condition. [The book] concentrates on eight American literary and
performing comedians from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, whose
social observations require the obligatory, 'Only kidding, folks!"
even when they may not be.--James A. Cox "The Midwest Book
Review"
Useful new study of American humor.--Forrest G. Robinson "American
Studies"
Very readable and mighty interesting. Better yet, it really does
talk about culture (and the role comedians play in it) without
becoming wearily, predictably ideological, and without forcing
readers on a death march down the tangled roads of theory.--Sanford
Pinsker "Franklin and Marshall College"
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
