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The Jokers (1964)

by Albert Cossery(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1590173252 (ISBN13: 9781590173251)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

NYRB Classics

review 1: The idea of fighting a despot with laughter interested me, along with the contrast between "joker" Heykal and "revolutionary" Taher. But I couldn't get on board with this running thread of obsession with girlhood/perceived innocence that ran throughout the book. The undercurrent of misogyny was a little much for me: Soad's transformation from fun-loving, joyful girl-woman to full-on woman, which turns off Heykal because it must mean that she is now fixated on "lucre"; the "little prostitute" Amar, who is desirable because she is powerless. Heykal's fixation on the girl in the ice cream shop under the thumb of her crass, materialistic mother versus the grown women in the corner "gorging themselves" on cake, who disgust Heykal. Maybe you're not supposed to interpret his inte... morerest in little girls as sexual, but I had a hard time not thinking that. Are you supposed to take his philosophies seriously (the "wonderful plenitude...the breadth of joy" in a man?), or are we as readers supposed to see through this just like we're supposed to see through Taher's asceticism? Is the characterization of Heykal just one more joke?
review 2: Perhaps if I had read Cossery’s The Jokers when I was in my early twenties instead of in my early fifties, life would have been much easier to digest. The character Heykal states that are two very simple things to understand. The rest is of no importance. The first being, that the world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks to ever defile the soil of this planet. The second being, is that you must never take them seriously, for that is exactly what they want. Follow the pursuits of this group of “Comedy Terrorists” in their attempt to deal with the world’s madness, as if it were their salvation. less

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