Dovlatov’s literature is full of humor. Various testimonies were reviewed to prove this statement, including Dovlatov’s own statement about his humor. What Dovlatov considers the source of his humor is two: first, the fact that his ethnic origin is half Armenian and half Caucasian. For Caucasian, according to Dovlatov, humor is not only essential in daily life, but being not humorous is bigger crime than murdering an ordinary person. The second source of Dovlatov’s humor is an influence from American literature. Since the influence of American literature to Dovlatov’s humor is a separate subject, it is not fathomed in this paper.
Andrej ?erkasov testifies that Dovlatov inherited the sense of humor from his mother Nora Sergeevna. Dmitrij Dmitriev takes an example of Dovlatov’s humor from letters what the Dovlatovs corresponded. Dovlatov pere signed his name in his letter as “Don At,” to which Dovlatov fils signed his name as “Ser Gej.” This example proves that Dovlatov practices his inherited sense of humor from his mother to his father. Boris Roitblat presents an episode with Dovlatov, proving that Dovlatov was such a fine story teller.
Besides the above mentioned corroborations, there are many reviews on Dovlatov’s literature that indicate what kinds of humor are in his literary works. Karriker’s review on A Foreign Woman, Mozur’s review on Remeslo and The Suitcase are few of them that discussed in this paper.
?tem’s remarks on Dovlatov’s literature are very interesting and provocative. She said that “Dovlatov wrote funny and merry prose, but he was characteristically a pessimist. Dovlatov shared his painful path with his readers and he created the great literature. Dovlatov refined wit, gag and anecdotes either he himself created or heard from others to cultivate a new literary genre.” All of these reviews and remarks are sincere proofs of Dovlatov’s humor, on one hand, and indications, on the other hand, of some characteristics of his humor.
As for the theoretical analysis of Dovlatov’s humor in A Foreign Woman, three humors were scrutinized according to Hart’s and Hunt’s humor theory, cognitive theory. This cognitive theory of humor, unlike other typical and philosophical theories, provides means to analyze concrete humors. Hart’s and Hunt’s humor theory requires four necessary conditions to appreciate a humor: “S finds some features of x amusing at t only if: (1) at t S is in a non-threat situation; and (2) S perceives x at t; and (3) S has some contextual, background information on the basis of which to form expectations; and (4) S is aware that some specific features of x are in-congruous with her expectations; and (5) S then feels some pleasure.” Three representative humors from A Foreign Woman have been precisely analyzed. These analysis exposures the aesthetic features of Dovlatov’s humors. Thus the laughter, the natural reaction to Dovlatov’s humors, has been theoretically explained. The readers’ automatic reactions turned out to be something that has a theoretical basis.