Hurting with laughter as you read
Up it rises from the stomach. It tiptoes through the chest, tickles the throat and emerges as a wheezy splutter. Cheeks twitch, a snort escapes. It is a different kind of laughter to that which decorates shared merriment. In public and in unison, laughter is outward-facing and expressive. With a book it is personal and discreet.
This is especially true when reading in public. To stifle laughter while sitting on a bus is, joyously, the closest adulthood brings us to the impossible giggles of the classroom, those eruptions that were like fireworks in our mouths. Breathlessly, we were unable to recall what had prompted our sniggers and avoided eye-contact with our partners in crime. On that bus now, we put down our book and look away, laughing into the window.
Laughter can be plucked from any genre The odd comic image prowls among horror, and sharp dialogue pricks the pages of an intense, petrifying thriller. In those instances, mirth is relief. Where it is more frequent and consistent – the travelogue, a droll novel – laughter between us and the book becomes a cosy, extended course of in-jokes. This is private amusement, and the act of holding up the book represents a screen keeping it personal, a yawn behind the back of a hand. It is a unique form of laughter. In the pub or the cinema, or at the theatre or stand-up gig, chuckling runs to a timetable, poking a reaction from us when it sees fit. Book laughter allows us to take a joke in our own time, and interpret humour for ourselves. There is no granting of permission to laugh, only an enriching intimacy.
It is wonderful to observe a bookcase and know that among its stately spines with their shoulders back and chests forward, are slapstick, sarcasm and foul-mouthed toddlers. Such a realisation recalls the first time a stern relative is spotted mimicking a figure of authority. Within earnest pages crouch guffaws and chortles, delicious secrets waiting to make us feel helpless and teenage once again.