Book Review: Steve Martin

I just finished listening to Steve Martin's Born Standing Up. It was not funny.

OK, it was absolutely hilarious when he told jokes from his old stand-up routine, but he didn't tell good jokes about his routine or life as a stand-up. Mostly it's him describing his childhood, how his father took a spanking too far once and only once told him he loved him, how his parents' deaths brought him and his sister closer together, how he was very lonely on the road, and how he had anxiety attacks, and thus mostly it's very not funny. Of course not everything has to be funny, but I think it's clear that Steve Martin's comparative advantage is in funniness and not in introspective narratives about how hard it is to grow up. It did make me really want to go watch The Jerk, though.

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