I've really enjoyed Rhoda Janzen's sense of humor in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Like Janzen, I also have quite frugal parents, and when she makes fun of that frugality, I can see my own experience of eating from dollar menus in a humorous light. I think that humor is partly why this book was so successful with such a broad audience. Humor is a form of honesty, and when I read this book, I am flattered that Janzen will so candidly reveal the weird and embarrassing quirks of her family life to me, a complete stranger.
It's something like being at a junior high slumber party with Janzen and hearing her tell embarrassing-but-funny stories about her mother drinking tuna juice or thinking that the word “boner” means “mistake.” Even if that exact experience hasn't actually happened to you, the reader, this humor provides a handle for you to grab onto to think about other funny things that your own parents have done, and to connect with the memoir. I was realizing the other day that the majority of college-student conversations are all about saying funny things, and I think this is because humor creates connections between people really well. It seems appropriate that a book about Mennonites and the community that they are so renowned for would be written in a humorous tone that fosters connection between author and reader, as well as between people in general.
Janzen manages to pull off a light-hearted tone even when she's talking about pretty serious subjects, but at times this humor seems like a defense. The little checklist box on page 13 comes to mind as an instance when Janzen is pretty humorously flippant about a really serious, sad event. She presents two options: “Yes, I want my husband to leave me pre-pee bag” or “No, I'd rather he left me post-pee bag.” I mean, it's really cool that she can talk about her nasty divorce with Nick in such an upbeat and funny way, but in some ways the candidness of her narration breaks down with this humor. As a reader, I begin to question whether Janzen is being completely honest with me; it seems that there must be painful emotions that she is covering up with this humor. She doesn't really talk much about her woundedness at all. Maybe this is intentional—maybe she worries that talking about her emotions would turn the narrative into a weepy, overly-sentimental story—but I feel less like her trusty slumber-party confidant when I begin to wonder if she is hiding something from me.
When the humor serves as a way of making connections between author and reader, then, it is effective for me, but when it breaks these connections by obscuring information, the humor seems somewhat superficial to me. This kind of relates to our discussion about what stories Mennonites choose to tell and what stories they choose to obscure. Is humor Janzen's more modern Mennonite way of hiding certain things that she doesn't want to reveal? And why would she be hesitant to express her feelings and emotions (assuming, of course, that she is hesitant to express them)?
Good insights into the different ways that humor works in MLBD. Rhoda strikes me as having a healthy dose of her mother's optimism. It's an interesting observation that sometimes the humor gets in the way of the reader's connecting with Janzen's deeper pain. Then again, laughter and tears are never very far apart. Readers tend to prefer humor with their pathos--but there are moments when I glimpse a deeply disturbing narrative under the humor. Janzen doesn't completely mask it for me. Yet there are times when I want to pause and stop laughing, and she keeps the jokes coming. Let's see if we can precisely identify some of these moments in the text.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Sarah, I wonder too why Janzen presents some things as humor and not as straight-forward, serious-toned honesty.
ReplyDeleteIn Human Behavior class last semester I learned of different "Defense Mechanisms" that humans create to endure traumatic, hurtful, or embarrassing situations. One of the mechanisms is to use humor to displace something that may be too hard to talk about. Though we all use defense mechanisms to some extent, and need them to survive, having too much of one case does not allow the person to fully work through their feelings.
It would be concerning if Janzen DID fully displace her pain with humor, though I would hope that her novel is only a humorous interpretation of her emotions; one lens of looking at her life. Hopefully in her "real" life...the day to day, raw reality instead of a somewhat glamorous self-interpretation...she has been able to work through her emotions in a positive way. Reading some passages, I do believe she is an intuitive and emotionally-conscious woman, though maybe the humor drowns that out sometimes.
I definitely agree about Janzen's humor seeming to be a defense mechanism. I was quite surprised when I read that checkbox about her husband leaving her. I was surprised she had written that, it was a little too sarcastic for me. It didn't seem like she cared at all. I also didn't find much emotion when she talks about the car crash she was in. It is like 'yeah I was in a car crash the same week my husband left me' and then she moves on. I wanted her to linger more on those events than on what happened when she visited home. Maybe she wanted to be consistent and keep the humor through the entire book? However in this case I think some more reflection would have helped.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Janzen's humor is definitely a defense mechanism. And I felt like it worked against her in some places. I, too, got the impression that she was hiding something underneath her cavalier approach to this really serious series of events, and it made me feel a little gypped.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I think humor is necessary to writing something that is readable, Janzen takes it a little over the top (I'm shocked that I'm saying this, actually, but it's true). She has lots of good instances of humor and self-awareness, but these are counteracted by too many instances of using jokes and quippiness to disguise or avoid deeper issues.
Well, humor is one good way to connect with the writer or the reader (depending on which position you hold). Me, I didn't see anything humorous. I was like, "Yeah, okay. Whatever." I'm not humorous at all, and I don't see anything (no matter what it is) as humorous unless it's a "very funny" joke. The little things that people don't see as being very funny, I tend to see it as funny or an okay funny and sometimes I'll have a quick giggle. But that's the extent of my "humorous side" (or lack thereof). "Like being at a slumber party," now that's a good way of seeing this book.
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