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High Seriousness

Thomas Jones

Geoff Dyer cracks a joke; J.M. Coetzee doesn't laugh:


Comments


  • 20 March 2010 at 2:20pm
    Martin says:
    Well, I think JMC might be justified there. It's not exactly Geoff Dyer's (or anyone's) best joke. And Coetzee was never one to bother with such social niceties as laughing politely at a limp joke. But it is very funny footage - far funnier than Geoff Dyer's joke in fact.

  • 21 March 2010 at 12:00am
    Jason Farago says:
    A few months ago I went up to Oxford to see a rare Coetzee reading, and at the signing afterward I told him I always thought he was an underestimated humorist. He looked up, cocked his head slightly, stared at me, and emitted a very, very short "Ha." One of the few major achievements of my short life.

    • 22 March 2010 at 6:18am
      Ha.

  • 22 March 2010 at 11:54am
    outofdate says:
    Not nearly as excruciating as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucchNOgm2mQ

  • 22 March 2010 at 5:29pm
    Saffy says:
    Good grief, that's awful. "Don't give up the day job", etc

  • 24 March 2010 at 1:13pm
    Anthony Cummins says:
    Dyer gets a laugh eventually (as the Q&A ends - see 18-min mark too though).

    http://www.themonthly.com.au/geoff-dyer-adelaide-writers-week-jm-coetzee-p2-2336

  • 27 March 2010 at 9:40pm
    loxhore says:
    If Amis says he is humourless, Coetzee is humourless.

  • 5 April 2010 at 4:00pm
    alex says:
    Surely J.M. could have smiled at least. It's a matter of Coetezee...

    • 6 April 2010 at 9:49am
      Phil Edwards says: @ alex
      Ha.

      (Just barely.)

  • 4 July 2010 at 5:26pm
    loxhore says:
    The Guardian review: only four months behind the internet

  • 24 May 2012 at 8:12am
    Elvis Bego says:
    I wonder if Coetzee's unmoved poise itself isn't a deliberate, comic response?

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