New York Times Book Review
"[Geary takes] a quirky approach for a quirky topic."
Quartz - Ephrat Livni
"[James Geary] raps, rhymes, puns, quips, jives, and dialogues his way through this rich history and analysis.… The end result is an extended dance remix on the art of the quip that is both humorous and instructive."
The New Yorker
"Geary is a keen storyteller, promiscuous with quotes and figures. One could do worse at a cocktail party than simply opening his book at random and reading aloud."
Harold Bloom
"I have been reading Wit’s End in juxtaposition to rereading and again writing about James Joyce’s Ulysses. Geary prompts me to think that Joyce’s title could have been No End to Wit. Goethe wrote an essay called “No End to Shakespeare.” There seems to be no end to James Geary’s versatility."
Bob Mankoff
"Whoever was the foremost authority on this topic is now second-most."
Booklist (starred review)
"Readers roaring with laughter at outrageous puns one moment find themselves carefully assessing psychological studies the next... An exhilarating romp, entertaining and enlightening."
Washington Post
"Wit’s End juggles scholarship, humorous anecdote and critical insight with a diabolical, almost sinister dexterity. No shrinking violet, Geary fully intends to strut his stuff, to glitter and beguile, and he does so with remarkable ingenuity and chutzpah."
The New Yorker - Katy Waldman
"Geary is a keen storyteller, promiscuous with quotes and figures. One could do worse at a cocktail party than simply opening his book at random and reading aloud."
Michael Dirda
"Juggles scholarship, humorous anecdote and critical insight with a diabolical, almost sinister dexterity."
David Litt
"If you've ever spent hours overanalyzing your favorite stand-up special or sitcom episode, this is the kind of insightful, carefully reasoned deep dive you'll love."
Wall Street Journal
"Crucially, instead of analyzing wit to death, Mr. Geary chooses to embody it... [He] writes not just playfully but with panache... Geary's chief success is in conveying the power of wit to refresh the mind."
Stephen Fry
"Wit’s End is delicious. James Geary has managed to produce a witty book about wit that steers an elegant path between waggishness and wisdom."
David Shields
"Comedy is famously impossible to describe without destroying it, so James Geary—in this entertaining and informative and funny book—makes a very smart and effective move: he embodies the many different forms that wit takes, from poems to jokes to jive to rap. In a time of constant, unintentional humor, here is a purposeful and valuable reminder that sometimes it's on purpose and sometimes it's very nearly life-saving."
Shelf Awareness - Harvey Freedenberg
"[Wit’s End is] an entertaining exploration of how intellectual dexterity manifests itself in both verbal and visual form.… [Geary] shows here that he’s fully equal to the task, enhancing our appreciation of how true wit can both amuse and enlighten."
The New Yorker
"Geary is a keen storyteller, promiscuous with quotes and figures. One could do worse at a cocktail party than simply opening his book at random and reading aloud."
JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile
James Geary’s essays on wit—what it is, how it’s manifested—give narrators David De Vries, JD Jackson, and Janet Metzger vocal workouts. His discussions of topics such as jive and stand-up comedy become examples of the forms themselves. He starts with a mock Alexander Pope poem; De Vries narrates the couplets in a British accent that makes them sound like Shakespeare. As Geary keeps up the parodies throughout, listeners may not feel as if they're learning while they chuckle. But Geary is providing informative observations on wit—for example, on the way Wile E. Coyote's misadventures play with expectations. Geary becomes more serious as he discusses Robin Williams’s suicide and puns that get around censorship in China. This audiobook could help listeners craft better puns as it reveals the secrets of silliness. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-08-13
A playful book that celebrates all forms of wit.
In his latest, Geary (Deputy Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism/Harvard Univ.; I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World, 2011, etc.) discusses many of the forms wit can take. To add to the fun, he writes each chapter in a style that mimics the topic under discussion. A chapter that compares wit to fencing is a "dramatic dialogue" between philosopher Denis Diderot and literary theorist Madame de Staël, who says that, to be witty, one must have what is known in fencing as a riposte, "a quick, robust return thrust." Another chapter, written as a scientific paper, examines "how wit might work in the brain" and includes footnotes, figures, tables, and diagrams. Geary has great fun with the many different styles: an essay written in the manner of 17th-century English playwright Joseph Addison's Spectator essays on "the nature of wit"; a section written in jive; a poem in the form of a rap song; an art history lecture that states that "seeing is an interpretive act," such as when one detects a human face in a rock outcropping; even a sermon. The use of different styles for each chapter is sometimes too clever for its own good, but one is likely to come away from the book convinced of many of the author's arguments, as when he demonstrates that "puns are not wit's lowest form but its highest expression." Many of the anecdotes are hilarious, as when Geary notes that, after a Columbia University philosopher stated in a lecture that no language exists in which two positives make a negative, another professor muttered from the back of the hall, "Yeah, yeah."
"To see clearly, look askance," Geary advises. He heeds his own advice to entertaining effect.
