Give that man a trophy! Humorist Simon Rich amuses again with ‘Glory Days’

Humorist Calvin Trillin once defined humor by saying it’s undefinable: “It’s what makes the lady in the second row laugh.” You can’t debate it, he said. You can’t tell her, “This joke worked yesterday; you should be laughing.”

No matter how you describe it, the ability to make that lady laugh is rare. But Simon Rich has it, and his latest, “Glory Days,” is not only extremely and creatively funny but also a testament to what can happen when a writer sets forth without Waze connected to his word processor.

Rich’s stories don’t go straight to the yucks. They take unexpected turns, as though Simon knows the obvious route has been traveled before.

Consider that his take on the battle between David and Goliath takes a twist of — you should pardon the expression — biblical proportions. Turns out we’ve all been fed malarkey. The kid didn’t beat the giant. Goliath threw the match because he needed cash to send his daughter to private school.

Or “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The king wasn’t angry with the boy who revealed his hypocrisy. On the contrary, he found being naked liberating. “My whole life I’ve been ruled by fear... From now on all that ends. Thanks to you, I’m going to have a life of openness and truth.”

I must admit I was the unlaughing lady in the second row for one story, about Super Mario. It probably was funny but, since I stopped playing video games after my son started beating me at Space Invaders, I had no frame of reference.

That exception aside, what struck me is that Rich’s stories are not only funny, but also thoughtful and revelatory. One is narrated by a participation trophy a young Rich won after a relay race — even though he ran the wrong way. He treasured it, until his older brother denigrated the award, saying it was cheap, made in China and everyone got one.

Ironically, that spurred Rich’s success; he pursued real awards to the detriment of all else, including his family. He had no time for his children when they came into his office, quickly escorting them out. Until the day when they stopped coming and he “felt a sharp pang in [his] chest, like someone discovering, in the middle of a relay race, that they’d been running in the wrong direction.”

I marveled at Rich’s ability to juxtapose a really off-the-wall idea with a tender-hearted ending that made me think of those “Space Invaders” days. I felt it marked a new level of maturity in his writing.

So I went back and re-read one of his earlier books, “Hits and Misses.” I figured I could make some comparisons that would make me seem intelligent and perhaps earn me a Reviewer’s Trophy.

But there were no comparisons to be made. He’s always been this good.

Curt Schleier is a critic in New Jersey.

Glory Days

By: Simon Rich.

Publisher: Little, Brown. 224 pages, $28.