Some Remarks on Humor

(E. B. White)

点评：

幽默被公认为生活中最重要的部分。本文第一段：引出幽默的本质，讲述分析家解析幽默之行为引发作者的思考。

第二段：吹肥皂泡表演激发作者的智慧，引出幽默的本质。

第三段：幽默家的辛酸表演折射出生活中的痛苦，引人深思。

第四段：幽默折射出真理的灼人热力。

Analysts have had their go at humor, and I have read some of this interpretative literature, but without being greatly instructed. Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

In a newsreel theatre the other day I saw a picture of a man who had developed the soap bubble to a higher point than it had ever before reached. He had become the first-class soap bubble blower of America, had perfected the business of blowing bubbles, refined it, doubled it, squared it, and had even worked himself up into a convenient lather. The effect was not pretty. Some of the bubbles were too big to be beautiful, and the blower was always jumping into them or out of them, or playing some sort of unattractive trick with them. It was, if anything, a rather repulsive sight. Humor is a little like that: it won't stand much blowing up, and it won't stand much poking. It has a certain fragility, an evasiveness, which one had best respect. Essentially, it is a complete mystery. A human frame convulsed with laughter, and the laughter becoming hysterical and uncontrollable, is as far out of balance as one shaken with the hiccoughs or in the throes of a sneezing fit.

One of the things commonly said about humorists is that they are really very sad people－clowns with a breaking heart. There is some truth in it, but it is badly stated. It would be more accurate, I think, to say that there is a deep vein of melancholy running through everyone's life and that the humorist, perhaps more sensible of it than some others, compensates for it actively and positively. Humorists fatten on trouble. They have always made trouble pay. They struggle along with a good will and endure pain cheerfully, knowing how willingly it will serve them in the sweet by and by. You find them wrestling with foreign languages, fighting folding ironing boards and swollen drainpipes, suffering the terrible discomfort of tight boots.... They pour out their sorrows profitably, in a form that is not quite fiction nor quite fact either. Beneath the sparkling surface of these dilemmas flows the strong tide of human woe.

Practically everyone is a manic depressive of sorts' with his up moments and his down moments, and you certainly don't have to be a humorist to taste the sadness of situation and mood. But there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying, and if a humorous piece of writing brings a person to the point where his emotional responses are untrustworthy and seem likely to break over into the opposite realm, it is because humor, like poetry, has an extra content. It plays close to the big hot fire which is Truth, and sometimes the reader feels the heat.

背景介绍：

E.B.怀特（1899－）美国著名散文家、诗人与记者。出生于纽约，二十年代起长期在《纽约人》杂志任编辑，曾因为《哈泼斯》杂志撰写文章而成名。他的一些游记文章写得尤为出色，被广泛转载于大量课本与文选之中。

参考译文：

谈幽默

分析家都曾尝试过解析幽默，我就曾读过一些这类阐述性的文献，但无多大益处。幽默可以解剖，就如青蛙可以解剖一样，只是这东西在解剖的过程中会死掉，而其内部结构，除了那些纯粹的科学头脑之外，其他的人都只会感到失望。

那天在一家新闻片影院我看到一个片子，片中的那个人将吹肥皂泡发展到了一个前所未有的高度。他成了美国吹肥皂泡的头号人物，使吹肥皂泡技艺达到臻于完美的地步。他使肥皂泡很精美，并能吹出两个，四个，甚至把自己套进肥皂泡里。其效果并不美观。一些肥皂泡过于庞大，无美可言，而那吹肥皂泡的人，一会儿跳进肥皂泡，一会儿又挑出来，或者用肥皂泡玩点毫不吸引人的把戏。看后只觉得令人生厌。其实幽默就与吹肥皂泡有些类似：它经不起一吹再吹，也经不住一捅再捅。它有些纤嫩脆弱，又有些飘忽不定，对此我们只好予以尊重。从本质上说，它完全是个神秘之物。当一个人笑得前俯后仰，笑到几近歇斯底里、不可遏制之时，其身体严重地失去平衡，较之打嗝打得发抖或打喷嚏打不出来又有何差别呢？

关于幽默家，人们最常说的一句话就是，他们实际上都是些非常悲哀的人物--一群伤透了心的小丑。这话不无相当道理，只是表达方法欠佳。我以为，更恰当的一种说法应该是，每个人的生活里都有着一股深深的忧郁在流淌，而幽默家或许比其他人对此更为敏感，能以一种活泼、积极的态度为它做出补偿。幽默家是靠烦恼发财的，他们总能从烦恼中得到补偿。他们满怀喜悦向前挺进，欢欣鼓舞忍受着痛苦，深知这麻烦会最终乐意为他们带来甜蜜的回报。你将看到他们为弄懂那些洋文费尽心思，为搞定那些折叠的钢板，淤塞的排水道想尽办法，为脚下那双窄靴受尽洋罪......他们把自己的痛苦以有利可图的方式倾倒出来，而所凭借的形式既非完全虚构，又非绝对事实。在这些困窘令人发笑的外表之下流淌着人类痛苦的洪流。

事实上，我们每一个人都有几分狂郁症的迹象，有时高兴狂喜，而有时忧郁低落。当然，你无需一定是一名幽默家才能体味到情景和情绪的悲伤。但是笑与哭的界线却往往是很微妙的。如果一件幽默作品竟使一个人的情感反应失控，看似进入与之相反的境地，这是因为幽默也像诗歌一样有一项额外的内容。幽默就在真理的熊熊大火附近上演，因而读者有时也能感受到其灼人的热力。
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