JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We started this week talking about the things that keep us going through the long gray days of winter: the green of houseplants, some mindful gratitude. Tilia Klebenov Jacobs has also put her finger on something we all need. In her new YA time-travel caper, STEALING TIME, a present-day teen is tossed back to the 1980s, where she teams up with her 15 year old future dad to stop a thief and save their family's future. Comedy ensues, and action, and, maybe most importantly, optimism.
“Can’t tell you how much I needed this. Fun!”
This, my favorite review for Stealing Time, appeared right after Election Day, and I suspect the reader’s need for comfort reflected the recently-closed political season. I was flattered to have provided such a tonic, because although our culture frequently values tragedy over comedy, I feel that the latter, being the genre of positive outcomes, is an essential service.
By “comedy,” I do not necessarily mean that which is laughter-inducing. Instead, I am hewing close to the Classical definition. The Greeks and Romans used the term “comedy” to mean stage-plays with happy endings. Aristotle believed that comedy was positive for society, as it brought forth happiness, which he saw as the ideal state. It was seen as a profoundly valuable artistic expression in ancient society: Plato quotes Socrates as saying that “the genius of comedy [is] the same with that of tragedy.”
Today we have drifted far from that conviction. As novelist Julian Gough points out, “Western culture since the Middle Ages has overvalued the tragic and undervalued the comic. We think of tragedy as major, and comedy as minor. Brilliant comedies never win the best film Oscar. The Booker Prize leans toward the tragic.” Indeed. Most bestseller lists confirm this, as does my local cinema’s schedule for the upcoming months: their offerings for children focused on overcoming obstacles with humor, inventiveness, and courage; those for adults were mostly about serial killers, dystopias, and nuclear annihilation.
Aristotle defined comedy as “the fortunate rise of a sympathetic character.” This upward arc, far from being inherently facile or immature, reminds us that order will prevail, that evil is transient, that good will ultimately return. Tragedy, by contrast, focuses on chaos. Tragedy happens when order falls apart, and those things we thought were secure (health, love, sanity) crumble. To quote IamNormanLeonard, tragedy is “when the banana peel leads to a broken hip. When the man betrays his family. When the young woman succumbs to a mental illness.” He adds, “Pity, bitterness, rage, sadness, fear, dread, and, worst of all, hopelessness—these can kill you.”
Broadly speaking, tragedy deals with death, comedy with life. It is thus the expression of optimism and resilience. This was underscored to me in a recent episode of the podcast Where EverybodyKnows Your Name featuring an interview between Ted Danson and Lisa Kudrow, two comic actors of the highest caliber. Both objected to the idea that their genre is inconsequential. When Kudrow observed, “Entertainment is a service,” Danson replied that he had come to realize the value of his work when strangers told him how his comedy helped them survive tragedy.
Somewhere in the middle of [Cheers] or certainly after, people coming up to me and saying, “My father was dying, and he and I would lie on a sofa together and watch Cheers and be able to laugh. So the old, “We’re not curing cancer”—I disagree.
Cheers ended decades ago, but during Covid it must surely again have been Must See TV. As soon as lockdowns went into effect, those of us who were able leaped to boardgames, streaming series of an unserious nature, jigsaw puzzles, and comfort novels. We wanted art, dammit, and during the bleakest time most of us could remember, we specifically wanted escapism. Because we knew without being told that comedy would keep us going until life returned to normal.
Pain kills; laughter revives; and comedy reminds us that the gods are in charge and the world will right itself.
Let’s hear it for comedy.
When there’s no time left, you have to steal it!
New York, 2020. Tori’s world is falling apart. Between the pandemic and her parents’ divorce, what else could go wrong?
Plenty! Like discovering that a jewelry heist forty years ago sent her grandfather to jail and destroyed her family.
New
York, 1980. Bobby’s life is pretty great—until a strange girl shows up
in his apartment claiming to be a visitor from the future. Specifically,
his future, which apparently stinks. Oh, and did she mention she’s his daughter?
Soon
Bobby and Tori have joined forces to save the mystical gemstone at the
heart of all their troubles. But a gang of thugs wants it too, and
they’re not about to let a couple of teenagers get in their way.
