Blog 7, tales of Juha

     The Tales of Juha was the most interesting and funny book that we’ve read all semester. At first, because I am not of the Arab culture, I didn’t think this book would be so funny. But that wasn’t true, his book turned out to be extremely humorous. There were many different varieties of stories written in this book. These stories dealt with subjects such as wit, satire, cunning, stupidity, and boastfulness.

      In a lot of the humorous anecdotes, Juha was insulting another person, such as his wife. In one story, an ill Juha tells his wife to get dressed up and to put on some makeup. She inquires why, and he replies that if the angel of death saw her looking so splendid, he might take her instead of Juha (Jayyusi 47). In another story, Juha is married to an ugly wife, who looked like a man. So one day, when he sees a beautiful woman, he suggests to his wife that “the two of us marry her” (Jayyusi 21). After reading some stories like these, a part of me wants to feel throttle Juha for his offensive thoughts on women, but another part of me appreciates his wit and sense of humor. I’m not going to lie, I did chuckle at the fact that Juha would rather have the angel of death take his wife if that meant he could be alone. I also thought it was hilarious when he talked about the “two of us marrying her.” At first, I thought of a threesome. But I then realized that Juha could actually have been implying that his wife looked like a man, and so was more of a man. I appreciated the humor of these statements.

     Something I noticed is that Juha always has to be right, so he somehow always finds a loophole, or a way around a particular rule. For example, one story I found to be particularly funny is the story where Juha claimed to be a saint, he can even make the trees obey him. He commanded the tree to come, but it stayed stationary. So he started walking to the tree. When people asked what he was doing, he replied that “prophets and saints are free of all arrogance or vanity. If the palm tree won’t come to me, then I’ll go to the palm tree” (Jayyusi 103). I found this witty statement absolutely hilarious! I chuckled because he is determined to prove that he’s right and is a saint, even if he has to go to the palm tree instead of it coming to him.

     Tales of Juha is also hilarious because it Juha is a smart aleck who gives short, pointed, and seemingly obvious answers. For instance, a man once asked him if it was better to walk ahead of or behind a coffin in a funeral procession. Juha replied “as long as you’re not in the coffin, you can walk wherever you’d like” (Jayyusi 25). I’m not entirely sure why, but this answer made me laugh! I guess I laughed because it’s true, you can’t exactly walk when you’re the one in the coffin. Also, this answer is an example of the cognitive shift, because it was most likely not the answer that the man was expecting. He was probably expecting to hear “ahead of” or “behind.” Another humorous story that displayed Juha’s ability to be a smart aleck was the story where Juha was messily eating a meal. A man asked him a oddly worded question, which was “why are you eating like that, with 5 fingers?” And Juha’s smart remark was “Because, I don’t have 6” (Jayyusi 25)! This statement is an example of cognitive shift because the man was not expecting Juha to give this out-of-the-blue answer as an excuse for eating with his hands. Also, I enjoyed the wit and sarcasm behind this statement.

     The Tales of Juha was hilarious, and I can’t believe how many funny and witty little stories were in this book. This was one book I actually enjoyed reading. For the most part, it was a relatively easy read, although I could not understand some of the stories and therefore didn’t understand the humor. This book actually got me more interested in Arab humor and in the mysterious Juha himself. I would definitely recommend this book to my friends.