Review: Humor in Blue
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
All things considered, if Glenn Wood's memoirs of being a copper in New Zealand are accurate (and he told me they are "disturbingly unexaggerated), then it's probably for the best that he is no longer part of the thin blue line separating chaos from order. Not everyone, despite their best intentions, can endure the stress and terror of seeing the evil that people do to each other, of seeing laid bare the darkness that festers in the heart of humanity. As I read this account, it became apparent to me that he did not lose at least two things from his two-year close association with villainy--his soul and his sense of humor, though his soul probably did fall into jeopardy when he entered the world of advertising later.I first encountered Glenn's wild sense of humor in his first book, "The Laughing Policeman," the majority of which was concerned with his training as a police cadet prior to his probationary posting. The smiles, chuckles, groans and laughter provided by that book convinced me to purchase the current book, which picks up where the first left off. I was not disappointed. Not at all. Once again, I laughed, sighed, groaned, cringed (especially at his accident-prone nature), and smiled as Glenn took me on a rambunctious and raucous (and at times bawdy) trip through his life. As we wound our way through the end of his career (I know how a knife in the back feels, mate) the tone of the book changed from humor (high and low) to wistful, slightly melancholic as he is ground down by the grindstones of officialdom, but the ending is uplifting and hopeful despite all that happens, for Glenn emerges as a man ever optimistic, always hopeful, and without bitterness. And with his sense of humor intact.While many of the events in which he took part are now as forgotten as the newspapers in which they appeared, the foibles he witnessed and in which he participated are current as ever. Most non-Commonwealth readers might feel a schism between his culture and their own, but Glenn's humor, perspicacity and lucidity transcend the cultural divide. Folly is apparently the same in every culture, just as laughter remains a universal language. The author in recent years has started writing children's books, but one can hope that sooner or later he will again turn his hand toward humor, perhaps sending a satiric harpoon soaring in the direction of the advertising world.