7/9/01

Did You Hear the Joke About ...

By: Sam Orbaum

Two Jews on a Train: Stories From the Old Country and the New by Adam Biro. Translated by Catherine Tihanyi. Chicago, Chicago University Press. 128 pages. $17

Two Jews are on a train. They are every Jew, they are you, both of these Jews are, thus you are Adam Biro, who puzzlingly penned this as an autobiography and identifies himself as neither and both. If this sounds contrived, idiosyncratic and nonsensical, it is and isn't, and that's the wisdom of classic Jewish wit.
    Two Jews are on a train. They could tell each other a joke in two ways: if they are contemporary and hurried, they get on with it, short-cutting to the punchline, and either laughing or not. If they are old world, probably Hungarian, and what's the rush anyway, the joy emerges in the telling of it, drawing the joke out, philosophizing about a truism of Jewish life or death, and it sets you thinking.
    Biro, writing Jewish humor in French as a true Hungarian can, didn't make it easy for translator Catherine Tihanyi. The language in its original is rich in wordplay, complexity and subtlety. In English, the writing style is affected, the way humorists spun their tales a century ago. And that's why this collection of 22 parables is so quaint and charming: the punchline is merely a bonus to the masterful storytelling.
    Indeed, a few of the stories are well-known and well-worn, familiar as shorter jokes with looming punchlines, yet Biro draws them out for four or five pages, interrupting the proceedings to go off on tangents, with numerous tangents going off each tangent.
    'Two Jews are on a train,' he'll start, and for the next half-page ruminate off the subject, and then try again - 'Two Jews are on a train,' - and wax on with whimsical nahrishkeit about, say, the absurdity of never leaving one's shtetl that somehow manages to find itself in a succession of countries. The joke itself turns out to be a tangent.
    He could have told these 22 tales in 22 pages, rather than 128.
    Sometimes, though, the perambulating loquaciousness is detrimental, and gets lost in a maze of parenthetical musings (and a freight-train-load of long words).
    After enjoying the long ride and the scenic language, the ultimate destination - the punchline - isn't always Grand Central Haha. This, I guess, would be the fault of the translator, who must work free of the constraints of the original language.
    To wit, the tall tale titled 'Golf.' It's an oldie but a goodie, about the rabbi who - gasp! - plays golf on Shabbos, scores a succession of incredible holes-in-one, and the Devil second-guesses God: 'Not only there's no punishment, but an extraordinary reward?'
Now, the way we've heard it, the punchline is succinct and snappy: God responds, 'So who's he gonna tell?'
    Yuk, yuk.
    Here, it's overly wordy and punchless: 'No punishment? To whom do you suppose he'll be able to tell his story?'
    Phht.
    Never mind. Other endings are superb, like the one about the famous schnorrer Roth who promises the wretch Finkelstein an audience with Rothschild.
    The brilliant beggar finagles all the way to the 'enormous gilded and lacquered rosewood desk' of the great benefactor, shmoozes Finkelstein's case artfully, and the baron grants the miserable sadsack a tidy monthly stipend. Finkelstein, elated, scoots out, but not Roth.
    The next panhandler - the 'Russian minister of war and peace' - enters.
    Rothschild notices that Roth is still in the room, and asks what he wants.
    The punchline: 'Herr Baron, we are not through yet. I brought you some business - how about my commission?'
    Stand-up comedy this is not; it's a lingering sit-down read, perhaps as accompaniment on a long train journey.