Volume 45, Number 16 · October 22, 1998
The Wise Woman
By Julian Barnes
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
Knop, 291 pp., $23.00
Lorrie Moore is good at bad jokes. She's good at good jokes, too, and makes many of them. But good jokes are the sign of a certain control over the world, or at least of a settled vision, the sort of vision a writer has. Good jokes are finally just jokes; whereas bad jokes are more revelatory of character and situation. Wonky puns, look-at-me one-liners, inappropriately perky comebacks: these don't necessarily denote lack of humor, more a chin-up flailing at the discovery that the world is not a clean, well-lighted place; or that it is for some, but not for you, as the light falls badly on you and mysteriously casts no shadow.
Review, 1456 words
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