July 12, 2002

Do we change so much in the space of a few years that things that seemed hilarious to us at one time are no longer even mildly amusing? OK, maybe a teensy weensy bit amusing but not very much :p I’m reading a few books from Keith Laumer’s Retief series at the moment. The first Retief book I read was “Retief’s War” and that must have been all of ten years ago or more. I found the book to be extremely funny and can remember many scenes where I laughed out loud or had a good chuckle. I started searching for more Retief books from then onwards but didn’t find any at all till I went to the US. There, I got a whole bunch of Retief books but didn’t get the time to read any of them and that brings us to the present where I’ve actually started reading them :p However, I haven’t found so much as one laugh-out-loud bit in the two books that I’ve read so far! There were a few scenes that I found mildly amusing but it wasn’t as half as funny as I remember the first book to be.

The same thing is happening to me with Terry Pratchett. The first books of his that I read made me chuckle and laugh with almost every page turn but not so any more. I still get a smile on reading some of the stuff but mostly, while interesting reading, it doesn’t make me laugh as much as it used to. Am I losing my sense of humour or is it just that with age humour loses its surprise because you’ve heard all the jokes before? I really don’t know but I can do with a good laugh right now and none of my books seem to be able to provide it .. Ah well, maybe I should go back to reading Asterix and see if that is still funny :p

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Posted by Fahim at 6:00 am  |  1 Comment