Silence in October by Jens Christian Grondahl

Plot driven humour

Rating 5 out of 10

This was my second book by Jens Christian Grondahl. I most enjoyed the part where the married man falls for the temptation of a young woman in New York, and becomes unfaithful in his otherwise happy marriage. That part showed to me that Grondahl can be fun. Basically I have detected two kinds of humour in litterature. First there is the obvious humour, the slapstick kind of humour, which is upfront and everybody can grasp it and laugh. Then there is another kind of humour, which is more subtle. The humour here is withdrawn and deep and placed in the plot. So that the humour appears in how the different events are chained together. This kind of humour not everybody detects, it's of a more sophisiticated kind than the slapstick humour. As a reader it gives me an inner smile when I read this kind of humour. Karen Blixen often uses this deep, plot driven, humour in her stories in "Winter's Tales".