Giggles with Juha

Reading the second section of "The Tales of Juha," has been quite enjoyable.  This book is by far my favorite that we have read this semester.  I think that I just think this type of humor is hilarious.  I love making fun of myself.  The first chapter that we read, “Social Satire,” had some funny little anecdotes.  My favorite from this chapter was on pages 49-50.  This one was about Juha sending his son to buy him some grapes, and when Juha sends his son to do one thing, he ought to do two things.  So when Juha fell ill, his son brought him not only a doctor, a gravedigger as well.  I thought this was absolutely hilarious.  It was a sort of “stick it to the man” type gesture from the son, and it made me actually laugh out loud.  Essentially, the son was saying “so there” to his father for making him look bad.  I really enjoyed this entire section.

My favorite chapter that I have read is definitely chapter 4, “Naïvete and Stupitiy.”  This is hands down the section of the book that made me chuckle the most.  This may sound horrible, but I think stupidity is hilarious.  It drives me nuts, but I can’t help but giggle when somebody says something that doesn’t make sense or hints at stupidity.  A great example is the very first story in the chapter.  Juha buys a donkey, a thief steals the donkey and puts the rope around his friends neck, who then tells Juha that his mother turned him into a donkey and he just became a human again.  Juha believes him, and lets the man go.  When Juha returns to buy another donkey, he finds the same donkey again and thinks that the thief’s mother turned him back into a donkey and gets frustrated.  When I was reading this story, I was legitimately shaking my head at the thought of someone actually believing this.  This story is simply making fun of Juha’s intelligence as well as the fact that he is extremely naïve.  I noticed that a lot of the stories making fun of Juha’s intelligence had to do with thievery.  Another common theme throughout the book so far has been related to Juha’s wives.  Another story that I found amusing in this chapter was located on pages 74-75.  This story was about Juha’s wife convincing him that her giving birth after three months of marriage made sense.  I did an actual face palm (the act of hitting one’s forehead with the palm of one’s hand) while reading this.  Juha is incredibly naïve, and I just wanted to shake him and knock some sense into him. 

I am really enjoying reading this book.  I have laughed so much, and I am excited to finish the book up and potentially giggle some more!