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Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart
We've told you HOW TO SHIT IN THE WOODS. We've taken you UP SHIT CREEK. Now, we dare to ask the eternal question...WHO CUT THE CHEESE? Which is to say, what exactly is a fart? Why do we do it? Why do we hide it when we do it? And why do we find farts so darn funny? A cut above anything else on the subject, this book really lets go and tells all, getting to the bottom of these mysteries. Author Jim sniffs out a load of historical and scientific fart tales, then offers the kind of fun facts you'll be dying to let slip at social occasions, in chapters like "Fart Facts That Aren't Just Hot Air," "Gone with the Wind" (on famous movie farts), and "Le Petomane & the Art of the Fart" (on the most famous windbag in history). From fact to fiction to frivolous flatulence, this book is unquestionably a ripping good read.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionHumor
193 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1998
About the author
Jim Dawson
40 books10 followersDawson has also written extensively about early rock and roll and rhythm and blues, including 'What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record?' which Mojo magazine called 'one of the best musical reads of [1993].' His 1980 cover story on Ritchie Valens in the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times led directly to the reissue of the forgotten rock 'n' roller's recordings and the making of the biopic La Bamba, which used some of Dawson's research.
Jim Dawson is a Hollywood, California-based writer who has specialized in American pop culture (especially early rock 'n' roll) and the history of flatulence (three books so far, including his 1999 top-seller, "Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart"). Mojo magazine called his What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record (1992), co-written with Steve Propes, "one of the most impressive musical reads of the year"; it remains a valuable source for music critics and rock historians, and an updated second edition is currently available on Kindle. Dawson has also written a series of articles on early rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll pioneers for the Los Angeles Times, including a front-page story in the Calendar entertainment section on the forgotten tragic figure Ritchie Valens. The piece led directly to Rhino Records reissuing Valens' entire catalog (with Dawson's liner notes) and eventually to the 1987 biopic "LaBamba," which used some of Dawson's research. Since 1983 Dawson has also written liner notes for roughly 150 albums and CDs, including Rhino's prestigious "Central Avenue Sounds" box set celebrating the history of jazz and early R&B in Los Angeles. His most recent book (2012) is "Los Angeles's Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero."
Jim Dawson is a Hollywood, California-based writer who has specialized in American pop culture (especially early rock 'n' roll) and the history of flatulence (three books so far, including his 1999 top-seller, "Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart"). Mojo magazine called his What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record (1992), co-written with Steve Propes, "one of the most impressive musical reads of the year"; it remains a valuable source for music critics and rock historians, and an updated second edition is currently available on Kindle. Dawson has also written a series of articles on early rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll pioneers for the Los Angeles Times, including a front-page story in the Calendar entertainment section on the forgotten tragic figure Ritchie Valens. The piece led directly to Rhino Records reissuing Valens' entire catalog (with Dawson's liner notes) and eventually to the 1987 biopic "LaBamba," which used some of Dawson's research. Since 1983 Dawson has also written liner notes for roughly 150 albums and CDs, including Rhino's prestigious "Central Avenue Sounds" box set celebrating the history of jazz and early R&B in Los Angeles. His most recent book (2012) is "Los Angeles's Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
March 1, 2013
What I am about to say would in no way, ever be considered revolutionary – farts are always funny. They sound funny. They smell funny. They make people make funny faces upon their olfactory discovery. Denying these and other humorous characteristics of crepitation would be to deny our nature…whether you care to admit it or not. Because remember, whoever smelt it…
Bearing this in mind, Dawson provides the reader with what amounts to be a rather ripping-good read about posterior emanations with a few notable exceptions. This book is a veritable explosion of all things flatulent and I was most enamored of his in-depth treatments of religious and literate farts and especially of Le Petomane – the Moulin Rouge’s preeminent methane magician. (Have you had enough fart puns yet?)
I could have easily done without an entire chapter dedicated to the failed enterprise of Howard Stern’s attempt at producing a ‘Fartman’ movie. I have often contended that humor, even the most childish, must come from a place of intelligence and style, neither of which I ever found to be words used to describe Mr. Stern’s work. It is understandable, given the time of this book’s publishing (and the author’s nearly undeniable admiration for the Shock Jock), that Dawson may have spent some time here discussing this hot topic. Additionally, the author’s propensity to dribble on-and-on with longwinded passages from Jonathon Swift became a bit tiresome.
Finally, hanging on like dingle berries to the main content, Dawson peppers numerous jokes that wax scatological throughout the book. Many of them add some bite to the bark of this work; however, I felt stymied by a rather homophobic joke (near the end of the book) that went over in my mind like the proverbial fart in church. This misstep notwithstanding, ‘Who Cut the Cheese?’ is one of the oddest, yet more enjoyable trips my ass has taken in a long while.
Bearing this in mind, Dawson provides the reader with what amounts to be a rather ripping-good read about posterior emanations with a few notable exceptions. This book is a veritable explosion of all things flatulent and I was most enamored of his in-depth treatments of religious and literate farts and especially of Le Petomane – the Moulin Rouge’s preeminent methane magician. (Have you had enough fart puns yet?)
I could have easily done without an entire chapter dedicated to the failed enterprise of Howard Stern’s attempt at producing a ‘Fartman’ movie. I have often contended that humor, even the most childish, must come from a place of intelligence and style, neither of which I ever found to be words used to describe Mr. Stern’s work. It is understandable, given the time of this book’s publishing (and the author’s nearly undeniable admiration for the Shock Jock), that Dawson may have spent some time here discussing this hot topic. Additionally, the author’s propensity to dribble on-and-on with longwinded passages from Jonathon Swift became a bit tiresome.
Finally, hanging on like dingle berries to the main content, Dawson peppers numerous jokes that wax scatological throughout the book. Many of them add some bite to the bark of this work; however, I felt stymied by a rather homophobic joke (near the end of the book) that went over in my mind like the proverbial fart in church. This misstep notwithstanding, ‘Who Cut the Cheese?’ is one of the oddest, yet more enjoyable trips my ass has taken in a long while.
April 2, 2021
Book: Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart
Author: Jim Dawson
Publisher: Ten Speed Press; First Printing edition (1 December 1998)
Language: English
Paperback: 192 pages
Item Weight: 198 g
Dimensions: 15.16 x 1.09 x 22.73 cm
Price: 194/-
Fart! The very word can strike alarm into the hearts of proper folks and create a phantasmic stench strong enough to send them scurrying for cover.
And a book based utterly on Farts!! Outrageous, ain’t it?
Well this is not the first book of its kind. Pierre-Thomas-Nicolas Hurtaut in 1751, wrote a book on the art of farting. Consistent with the author, the "wind" is a casualty to intolerance as soon as it leaves one's body. "The compressed air, looking to escape, travels inside the parts of the body and leaves hastily, as soon as it identifies an escape route that civility prevents us from naming," he writes.
The author didn't hold back, and dedicated the final section of his book to a little encyclopedia of farts, categorizing them by smell and sound.
Who was it that unexpectedly decided a quick release of winds is nauseating?
Even though the true connoisseurs call it 'intestinal gas', farting is only socially tolerable in a humorous context. To be responsible for breaking wind in itself more often than not suggests feelings of shame. "You're the one that farted?" -- this question, which sounds more like an allegation, proves just how taboo a fart really is.
This is a humourous book replete with factual information – a fart-load of it … ehh a shit-load, I mean.
The author has divided his book into thirteen chapters – each one can be read autonomously. The divisions are:
1. ALL GOD’S CHILDREN GOTTA FART — If farting is sinful, why is it so good for you?
2. THE FART — Will the common household flatus vulgaris please stand up?
3. WORDS ARE BUT WIND — What do all those words mean, and where did they come from?
4. LE PETOMANE: THE FINE ART OF FARTING — Would you pay to see a man whistle a tune with his asshole?
5. LIT. FARTS — Did Shakespeare, Dante, Balzac, and the rest of them really say that?
6. A SWIFT KICK IN CUPID’S ASS — Who says beautiful women don’t fart like the rest of us?
7. MEN OF LETTERS — Mark Twain and Ben Franklin spell F-A-R-T!
8. RELIGIOUS FARTS — What did Jesus really mean when He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan?”
9. MUSICAL FARTS — Yeah, they sound lovely, but where do you put the microphone?
10. GONE WITH THE WIND — Hollywood’s farts: they’re rich, they’re famous, and they’re living your dreams!
11. ADVENTURES OF FARTMAN — Is Howard Stern America’s favorite asshole?
12. FUN WITH FARTS — Today’s gag items are actually designed to make you gag!
13. LEGENDS OF THE FART — Do you have Prince Albert in a can, or Abe Lincoln in a bottle?
Flatulence remained an exceedingly regarded source of hilarity throughout most of European history, principally among the lower classes. Only in the 18th century did moral authorities begin to vigorously smother it.
Since then, Great Britain and America in particular have had an intricate time dealing with the fart. Scientists have tried to cure the fart; protocol books admonished against it; Victorian ladies rustled their bustles to smokescreen its sound; publishers hid it behind euphemisms or censored it overall; and bluenoses affirmed farting a peccadillo.
Even as the new millennium has arrived, farting is still such an abhorrence that people worry about its consequences on their jobs, characters, and love lives.
Believe it or not, many folks resort to the deception of sneaking out farts and then, eyes bashfully perusing the ceiling, acting as guiltless as bunny rabbits, hoping someone else will be blamed. But in intimate situations no one else can be accused—and so the devil must pay. The New York Times reported in 1995 that some couples were even inserting clauses against farting in their prenuptial agreements.
Man’s taboo against farting is part of his taboo against shit. Everything we eat turns to shit or internal gas, yet we act as if turds and farts don’t exist.
And consider this: Why is female flatulence the largest taboo yet? What is it that makes the fairer species cripple at the consideration of releasing some intestinal pressure, and that this release may lead to romantic or social ramifications?
In his foreword to the 1913 reprint of John G. Bourke’s Scatalogic Rites of All Nations, the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, wrote:
[Civilized men] are clearly embarrassed by anything that reminds them too much of their animal origin.
Certainly the fart has long been a rudimentary way to articulate disdain.
In 1610, playwright Ben Jonson wrote in the opening scene of his most popular comedy, The Alchemist, “I fart at thee!” John Crowne, in Sir Courtly Nice (1685), dismissed an adversary with “A fart for your family!”
The Dutch humanist Erasmus opined in the early 16th century that “I cannot sufficiently admire that there are not some who fart against these men.”
So when exactly did farting become a taboo? We do not know for sure.
Two anecdotes in the Arabian Nights (called "The Historic Fart" and "The Father of Farts" in the Burton translation) attribute farts as a foremost plot element. Here, it is implied that it is a critical ‘faux pas’ to signify to somebody that they just farted, if they are your social superior.
The age of the Arabian Nights is debated, though, and it may not be more than a few hundred years old.
There was a famous Sufi in the Middle East over 12 centuries ago, renowned for the kindness of his heart, known as Hatim al-Asamm (Hatim the Deaf). He wasn't actually deaf. He was a shopkeeper and one day an old woman came into the shop and farted, awfully noisily. To spare her discomfiture, he pretended to be stone deaf. For as long as the old woman continued to live, he kept up the charade of deafness.
Dante has fart jokes in the Inferno. In Canto XXI of Inferno, when the pilgrim and Virgil are escorted into the subsequent circle by the demons, the lead demon signals that it's time to go when he makes "a trumpet of his ass"—that is, when he farts.
Even in modern times, American poet E. E. Cummings quipped in a 1925 poem, “No Thanks,” that “at him they fart they fart full oft.”
In two extreme examples of the fart as an insult, the Greek historian Herodotus chronicled the adventures of the Egyptian general Amasis, who farted at his king’s emissary and told him to take that message back to the court; and the Jewish historian Josephus reported an occurrence of a Roman soldier sparking a lethal revolt in Jerusalem by farting at worshippers.
On the other hand, in some Middle Eastern societies, flatulence by the guest after a sumptuous meal is considered a sign of accomplishment and appreciation.
Quite the opposite, in Baluchistan and Pashtunistan (the region encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan), flatulence is considered a moderately awful custom. There are folk-tales where people had to leave their villages as they farted in public.
Nevertheless, it is irrefutable that Doctors have prescribed a good fart for vigorous health for several thousand years. Hippocrates wrote in 420 B.C., “It is best for flatulence to pass without noise a-breaking, though it is better for it to pass with noise than to be intercepted and accumulated internally.”
“The fart as much as the burp must be permitted in the same way,” the Roman philosopher Cicero said in a private letter to Paetus in the first century B.C.
When Claudius became Roman emperor in A.D. 41, according to Suetonius Tranquillus, he “planned an edict to legitimize the breaking of wind at table [at banquets], either silently or noisily, after hearing about a man who was so modest that he endangered his health by an attempt to restrain himself.”
Claudius’s compatriot, Gaius Petronius, made a comparable identification in his work Satyricon: “Take my word for it, friends, the vapors go straight to your brain. Poison your whole system. I know some who’ve died from being too polite and holding it in.”
We who live in modern societies spend a great deal of time expunging our environments of odors and replacing them with fragrances. Scientists tell us the human nose can detect about 10,000 odors. We keep our water running to avoid stagnancy. We spend billions each year making our bodies scented of soap, deodorants and colognes, talcums, aftershave lotions, and douches, trying to smell like something other than ourselves. And though we generate unprecedented amounts of personal garbage and effluvia, our stealthy drainage systems carry it all away to be sanitized and dumped far beyond our sensitive nostrils.
No wonder the fart is such an unsolicited and wicked guest.
But over the past decade, farting in the West as also in the East has, to some extent, come out into the open air. We’ve openly acknowledged that farts are funny. Children’s books have begun to discuss “the gas we pass,” greeting cards make light of farts, talkshow hosts joke about them, and TV and film comedies routinely turn farts into gags.
But should farting be allowed to become commonplace?
As the Roman philosopher Lucretius pictured it a couple of millennia ago, odorous objects (in this case farts) are made up of “corpuscles” that enter other people’s noses like a vaporized spirit and create a union in the mucous, thus chemically melding person A’s fart with person B’s body—not a pretty picture.
To the ancient Greeks, our Western cultural ancestors, farting was low comedy, but comedy nevertheless. Aristophanes, one of the greatest of the early Athenian playwrights, amused the huge audiences at the Dionysian festivals on the southern slope of the Acropolis with infrequent flatulence jokes.
Aeons have passed since then.
Funny but true! Who doesn't fart? Everyone does. But no one wants to recognize that he or she passed gas in public. People actually coach themselves so well that they fart like a ghost and it's stiff to catch the culprit.
And guess what? Even I do the same!
Yet, I am confounded as to why this accepted process is considered reprehensible!! No one chooses to become a gas chamber. It's all natural and absolutely healthy. We can say ‘excuse me’ or ‘I beg your pardon’ after farting like we do after sneezing. Can't we? The breaking of these taboos is the necessity of an hour.
We need to be forthright and blatant about something that’s so very innate.
And Jim Dawson’s book tells you precisely why you should be laid-back, offhanded and detached about farting.
Who doesn't fart? Everyone does.
Grab a copy if you choose.
Author: Jim Dawson
Publisher: Ten Speed Press; First Printing edition (1 December 1998)
Language: English
Paperback: 192 pages
Item Weight: 198 g
Dimensions: 15.16 x 1.09 x 22.73 cm
Price: 194/-
Fart! The very word can strike alarm into the hearts of proper folks and create a phantasmic stench strong enough to send them scurrying for cover.
And a book based utterly on Farts!! Outrageous, ain’t it?
Well this is not the first book of its kind. Pierre-Thomas-Nicolas Hurtaut in 1751, wrote a book on the art of farting. Consistent with the author, the "wind" is a casualty to intolerance as soon as it leaves one's body. "The compressed air, looking to escape, travels inside the parts of the body and leaves hastily, as soon as it identifies an escape route that civility prevents us from naming," he writes.
The author didn't hold back, and dedicated the final section of his book to a little encyclopedia of farts, categorizing them by smell and sound.
Who was it that unexpectedly decided a quick release of winds is nauseating?
Even though the true connoisseurs call it 'intestinal gas', farting is only socially tolerable in a humorous context. To be responsible for breaking wind in itself more often than not suggests feelings of shame. "You're the one that farted?" -- this question, which sounds more like an allegation, proves just how taboo a fart really is.
This is a humourous book replete with factual information – a fart-load of it … ehh a shit-load, I mean.
The author has divided his book into thirteen chapters – each one can be read autonomously. The divisions are:
1. ALL GOD’S CHILDREN GOTTA FART — If farting is sinful, why is it so good for you?
2. THE FART — Will the common household flatus vulgaris please stand up?
3. WORDS ARE BUT WIND — What do all those words mean, and where did they come from?
4. LE PETOMANE: THE FINE ART OF FARTING — Would you pay to see a man whistle a tune with his asshole?
5. LIT. FARTS — Did Shakespeare, Dante, Balzac, and the rest of them really say that?
6. A SWIFT KICK IN CUPID’S ASS — Who says beautiful women don’t fart like the rest of us?
7. MEN OF LETTERS — Mark Twain and Ben Franklin spell F-A-R-T!
8. RELIGIOUS FARTS — What did Jesus really mean when He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan?”
9. MUSICAL FARTS — Yeah, they sound lovely, but where do you put the microphone?
10. GONE WITH THE WIND — Hollywood’s farts: they’re rich, they’re famous, and they’re living your dreams!
11. ADVENTURES OF FARTMAN — Is Howard Stern America’s favorite asshole?
12. FUN WITH FARTS — Today’s gag items are actually designed to make you gag!
13. LEGENDS OF THE FART — Do you have Prince Albert in a can, or Abe Lincoln in a bottle?
Flatulence remained an exceedingly regarded source of hilarity throughout most of European history, principally among the lower classes. Only in the 18th century did moral authorities begin to vigorously smother it.
Since then, Great Britain and America in particular have had an intricate time dealing with the fart. Scientists have tried to cure the fart; protocol books admonished against it; Victorian ladies rustled their bustles to smokescreen its sound; publishers hid it behind euphemisms or censored it overall; and bluenoses affirmed farting a peccadillo.
Even as the new millennium has arrived, farting is still such an abhorrence that people worry about its consequences on their jobs, characters, and love lives.
Believe it or not, many folks resort to the deception of sneaking out farts and then, eyes bashfully perusing the ceiling, acting as guiltless as bunny rabbits, hoping someone else will be blamed. But in intimate situations no one else can be accused—and so the devil must pay. The New York Times reported in 1995 that some couples were even inserting clauses against farting in their prenuptial agreements.
Man’s taboo against farting is part of his taboo against shit. Everything we eat turns to shit or internal gas, yet we act as if turds and farts don’t exist.
And consider this: Why is female flatulence the largest taboo yet? What is it that makes the fairer species cripple at the consideration of releasing some intestinal pressure, and that this release may lead to romantic or social ramifications?
In his foreword to the 1913 reprint of John G. Bourke’s Scatalogic Rites of All Nations, the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, wrote:
[Civilized men] are clearly embarrassed by anything that reminds them too much of their animal origin.
Certainly the fart has long been a rudimentary way to articulate disdain.
In 1610, playwright Ben Jonson wrote in the opening scene of his most popular comedy, The Alchemist, “I fart at thee!” John Crowne, in Sir Courtly Nice (1685), dismissed an adversary with “A fart for your family!”
The Dutch humanist Erasmus opined in the early 16th century that “I cannot sufficiently admire that there are not some who fart against these men.”
So when exactly did farting become a taboo? We do not know for sure.
Two anecdotes in the Arabian Nights (called "The Historic Fart" and "The Father of Farts" in the Burton translation) attribute farts as a foremost plot element. Here, it is implied that it is a critical ‘faux pas’ to signify to somebody that they just farted, if they are your social superior.
The age of the Arabian Nights is debated, though, and it may not be more than a few hundred years old.
There was a famous Sufi in the Middle East over 12 centuries ago, renowned for the kindness of his heart, known as Hatim al-Asamm (Hatim the Deaf). He wasn't actually deaf. He was a shopkeeper and one day an old woman came into the shop and farted, awfully noisily. To spare her discomfiture, he pretended to be stone deaf. For as long as the old woman continued to live, he kept up the charade of deafness.
Dante has fart jokes in the Inferno. In Canto XXI of Inferno, when the pilgrim and Virgil are escorted into the subsequent circle by the demons, the lead demon signals that it's time to go when he makes "a trumpet of his ass"—that is, when he farts.
Even in modern times, American poet E. E. Cummings quipped in a 1925 poem, “No Thanks,” that “at him they fart they fart full oft.”
In two extreme examples of the fart as an insult, the Greek historian Herodotus chronicled the adventures of the Egyptian general Amasis, who farted at his king’s emissary and told him to take that message back to the court; and the Jewish historian Josephus reported an occurrence of a Roman soldier sparking a lethal revolt in Jerusalem by farting at worshippers.
On the other hand, in some Middle Eastern societies, flatulence by the guest after a sumptuous meal is considered a sign of accomplishment and appreciation.
Quite the opposite, in Baluchistan and Pashtunistan (the region encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan), flatulence is considered a moderately awful custom. There are folk-tales where people had to leave their villages as they farted in public.
Nevertheless, it is irrefutable that Doctors have prescribed a good fart for vigorous health for several thousand years. Hippocrates wrote in 420 B.C., “It is best for flatulence to pass without noise a-breaking, though it is better for it to pass with noise than to be intercepted and accumulated internally.”
“The fart as much as the burp must be permitted in the same way,” the Roman philosopher Cicero said in a private letter to Paetus in the first century B.C.
When Claudius became Roman emperor in A.D. 41, according to Suetonius Tranquillus, he “planned an edict to legitimize the breaking of wind at table [at banquets], either silently or noisily, after hearing about a man who was so modest that he endangered his health by an attempt to restrain himself.”
Claudius’s compatriot, Gaius Petronius, made a comparable identification in his work Satyricon: “Take my word for it, friends, the vapors go straight to your brain. Poison your whole system. I know some who’ve died from being too polite and holding it in.”
We who live in modern societies spend a great deal of time expunging our environments of odors and replacing them with fragrances. Scientists tell us the human nose can detect about 10,000 odors. We keep our water running to avoid stagnancy. We spend billions each year making our bodies scented of soap, deodorants and colognes, talcums, aftershave lotions, and douches, trying to smell like something other than ourselves. And though we generate unprecedented amounts of personal garbage and effluvia, our stealthy drainage systems carry it all away to be sanitized and dumped far beyond our sensitive nostrils.
No wonder the fart is such an unsolicited and wicked guest.
But over the past decade, farting in the West as also in the East has, to some extent, come out into the open air. We’ve openly acknowledged that farts are funny. Children’s books have begun to discuss “the gas we pass,” greeting cards make light of farts, talkshow hosts joke about them, and TV and film comedies routinely turn farts into gags.
But should farting be allowed to become commonplace?
As the Roman philosopher Lucretius pictured it a couple of millennia ago, odorous objects (in this case farts) are made up of “corpuscles” that enter other people’s noses like a vaporized spirit and create a union in the mucous, thus chemically melding person A’s fart with person B’s body—not a pretty picture.
To the ancient Greeks, our Western cultural ancestors, farting was low comedy, but comedy nevertheless. Aristophanes, one of the greatest of the early Athenian playwrights, amused the huge audiences at the Dionysian festivals on the southern slope of the Acropolis with infrequent flatulence jokes.
Aeons have passed since then.
Funny but true! Who doesn't fart? Everyone does. But no one wants to recognize that he or she passed gas in public. People actually coach themselves so well that they fart like a ghost and it's stiff to catch the culprit.
And guess what? Even I do the same!
Yet, I am confounded as to why this accepted process is considered reprehensible!! No one chooses to become a gas chamber. It's all natural and absolutely healthy. We can say ‘excuse me’ or ‘I beg your pardon’ after farting like we do after sneezing. Can't we? The breaking of these taboos is the necessity of an hour.
We need to be forthright and blatant about something that’s so very innate.
And Jim Dawson’s book tells you precisely why you should be laid-back, offhanded and detached about farting.
Who doesn't fart? Everyone does.
Grab a copy if you choose.
July 30, 2010
I'm thoroughly impressed with the amount of research that went into writing this book and simultaneously disturbed that someone would spend so much of their time DOING this research. Who knew there was so much history and trivia surrounding a bodily function? I got this book from my loving husband as a gag gift.
I do have to admit that I laughed out loud in several spots- although the medieval history section was a big yawn.
I do have to admit that I laughed out loud in several spots- although the medieval history section was a big yawn.
June 18, 2025
Sadly, this book was a bit of a stinker (my one and only fart pun... promise).
Given the subject matter, the content has been exceedingly well-researched by Dawson and is generally presented in a high brow manner. There is, of course, a liberal peppering of fart jokes across the text, though I think this is generally done tastefully.
I liked how the chapters were organized by theme, but unfortunately this reinforced my feeling that the book reads like a Wikipedia article; the vast majority of the book is comprised of lists of fart-related facts and examples with minimal analysis ("so what?") or a compelling narrative. The sheer volume of seemingly uncurated content makes the book feel repetitive, as if Dawson is merely trying to fill up the pages.
This text could be trimmed by 80% and made into a much more compelling long form article or essay.
Given the subject matter, the content has been exceedingly well-researched by Dawson and is generally presented in a high brow manner. There is, of course, a liberal peppering of fart jokes across the text, though I think this is generally done tastefully.
I liked how the chapters were organized by theme, but unfortunately this reinforced my feeling that the book reads like a Wikipedia article; the vast majority of the book is comprised of lists of fart-related facts and examples with minimal analysis ("so what?") or a compelling narrative. The sheer volume of seemingly uncurated content makes the book feel repetitive, as if Dawson is merely trying to fill up the pages.
This text could be trimmed by 80% and made into a much more compelling long form article or essay.
Did Not Finish
December 26, 2019I did not finish. While I read the first 36 pages, I found it interesting and, despite the subject manner, well done. But, I never could find myself to open it again to continue reading. I am not sure why. It seems a bit childish to be so obsessed in writing on this topic. And while well done, the subject is a bit tasteless (pun intended). Maybe if I didn't have a stack of 200-something interesting unread books staring at me, I might have finished.
June 11, 2023
3.5 stars. My friend gifted me this book for a graduation present. The historical and etymological information on farts was truly interesting and funny, of course. However, the last few chapters fizzled out. It definitely was written in the late 1990s. A whole chapter for Howard Stern would never make it in a revised and updated version, but yes, at that time he was all over pop culture. [yawn]
February 3, 2024
This was so boring.
My uncle bought me several bathroom humor books when I was teen. No wonder I never read this one then or now. Either I’m really depressed or this book is very boring or both. I just could not get into it. I tried reading it before bed to maybe help put me to sleep but I couldn’t even pay attention to it, let alone fall asleep. Very disappointing.
My uncle bought me several bathroom humor books when I was teen. No wonder I never read this one then or now. Either I’m really depressed or this book is very boring or both. I just could not get into it. I tried reading it before bed to maybe help put me to sleep but I couldn’t even pay attention to it, let alone fall asleep. Very disappointing.
February 16, 2018
Not as good as Norman Inkpen's 'Shit Jokes: A history of scatological humour'.
September 19, 2018
Really...what did you expect?
March 19, 2020
Historical Research Into Current Culture Unique Humanity Condition Is Reality!
July 14, 2020
Neither serious nor particularly funny, this was a definite whiff
July 19, 2020
Well researched but definitely a stinker. Ratings-wise -close to a number 2.
December 19, 2022
One word came into my mind about this book. BffT!!
September 1, 2009
Nonfiction humor with plenty of serious, factual information too, although the author usually did slant things to the humorous side. It's hard not to when you're talking about intestinal gas, I suppose! LOL I had this as my 'bathroom book' (with the appropriate bookmark of two squares of toilet tissue) for several weeks and quite enjoyed this foray into the world of farts, and tidbits about how farting has been viewed by various cultures throughout the world in various times, including literary references to the foul wind across the centuries--one of the aptly named chapters being "Lit Farts." You get the idea! LOL I did enjoy this--it was a light, fun read, and I did learn a few facts along the way, too. (Who knew that Whoopi Goldberg devoted a whole chapter of her autobiography to farts? Not me! LOL) Sometimes the humor was a bit forced (a bit like a crosswise fart in that respect I guess! HA!) but all in all an entertaining, worthwhile read
September 2, 2008
So this was a novelty book my friend purchased and lent to me after a lively discussion on toots and poots. It's an entertaining read, with a lot of great little gems about the way society and literature has viewed flatulence (aka crepitation). It's not a particularly cohesively written piece, but it's worth a look!
November 11, 2012
Sure, it's not one you'll read to your grandma on her death bed. I think those expecting an advanced level of literary expertise and skill from a book called Who Cut the Cheese? may need to check their snobbery at the door. It's a book about farts for god's sake! It's exactly what it claims to be: a gas. (Yeah, I had to.)
August 15, 2013
I am a little embarrassed to admit that I am reading this book but I needed something light-hearted during 'crunch time' at work. This was a gift from a friend... While I literally laughed out loud several times (who doesn't love a good fart joke?!) I got bored during the literature review. Clearly I was reading this for humor and not history.
August 27, 2013
Forgetting the subject for a minute, kudos on the research, taking the reader back to a time long before the invention of the flush toilet. With this said, devoting a chapter, however small to a Howard Stern character really takes the book too deep into the gutter for my taste. (Right, and he's reviewing a book about farts.)
April 1, 2015
Who doesn't love a good fart joke. I'll be honest... I found myself laughing out loud at parts of this book but then I also found myself wanting to skip over huge portions as well. It actually becomes tedious after a while. I got a laugh or two but it won't make my top 10 list of books.
June 17, 2011
I have learned stuff about farts and flatulence that I could never even conceive to be true. Despite the subject matter, it's intelligently and fairly maturely written.
July 12, 2009
For lack of a better way to put this: this book is a hoot.
August 28, 2010
Fartastic reading!
October 7, 2010
Historical and scatalogical...very insightful. Bet you didn't know that Hitler's gas was so bad he needed medical aid...
March 15, 2011
It had some interesting information, but it wasn't very well written. A better than average gag book.
May 21, 2011
Gift from my sister. :)
May 31, 2012
some funny stories on the disputed matter of "fart"!
August 2, 2013
While the subject and some of the observations are puerile, the writing is hilarious. And surprise: it is incredibly well researched (which is kind of weird).
December 15, 2014
heh heh. Interesting and amusing.
April 30, 2016
There is actually a book about this were my first thoughts when I saw this book available on Amazon. Enjoyed reading it immensely! A through and through guy book haha full of guy humor!
March 12, 2009
There's a lot more to farts than meets the nose -- Joseph Pujol was the man -- read this book!
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