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James Thurber is hilarious. If one likes the kind of refined humour that is the hallmark of Wodehouse and Leacock, one cannot read him without laughing out loud - or at least chuckling. However, his stories border on the weird, and we are reminded constantly that we are only one step away from Kafka territory and two steps away from Stephen King.
This collection contains mostly reminiscences about Thurber and his eccentric family. There must have been a lot of creative exaggeration, but the reader would be hard put to find where truth stops and fancy begins - and after some time, we just don't care. The sheer ridiculousness of the situations narrated and the author's laconic humour in recounting them carries the story forward, and we don't want it to stop.
Looking at the stories, they are more weird than humorous. Dealing with marital incompatibility, paranoia and the helplessness of the small man in today's society, only the narrative style makes them funny; as I said earlier, they could easily be rewritten as horror stories. Thurber's animal parables for modern times are chilling in their indictment of modern society, and some of them (one especially, "The Very Proper Gander") are extremely relevant even now.
This review would be incomplete without a mention of the sketches and cartoons. Thurber's lines are spare (like the economy of his prose) but fantastically evocative.
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I picked this text up because I played a teenaged James Thurber in an autobiographical play about his childhood years ago. "The Thurber Carnival" was published in 1945 and is a compendium of James Thurber's work from 9 previous collections. At one time, he was one of the most famous writers in America. The Preface, written by Thurber himself is a great start to the collection.
I noticed th
I picked this text up because I played a teenaged James Thurber in an autobiographical play about his childhood years ago. "The Thurber Carnival" was published in 1945 and is a compendium of James Thurber's work from 9 previous collections. At one time, he was one of the most famous writers in America. The Preface, written by Thurber himself is a great start to the collection.
I noticed that there are many stories/essays in this piece that focus on unhappily married couples. Lots. Some of them feel a little too sharp for me, but "A Couple of Hamburgers" is a story that deals with an unhappy marriage and it is an excellent example of a well-written short story. Two other standout pieces are "Memories of the Gas Buggy", which actually made me giggle out loud and "Snapshot of a Dog", which is a simple and lovely tribute to a childhood pet.
An unexpected punch in the gut is the story "One is a Wanderer", a piece that focuses on loneliness and not having real intimacy. It will set you back for a moment.
The selections from Thurber's book "My Life & Hard Times" are easily the best, and funniest, in this collection. You will recognize a couple of stories from that work as many are quite famous and well anthologized to this day.
The last couple of sections of "The Thurber Carnival" were odd reads for me. The humor eluded me. I just chalked it up to different times and moved on, but it did lead me to a thought. As I read, I could not help but feel that this text is dated, really dated and I wonder if it will survive another generation. I do not know the answer to that.
I live just outside of Columbus Ohio, which is the place of Thurber's childhood and an inspiration for much of his work. He holds a sentimental place in my heart. I do hope he continues to be discovered by successive generations.
"It was a stupid mistake to make," said the American woman I had met at my hotel in the English lake country, "but it was on the counter with the other Penguin books--the little sixpenny ones, you know, with the paper covers--and I supposed of course it was a detective story. All the others were detective stories. I'd read all the others, so I bought this one without really looking at it carefully. You can imagine how ma
The Macbeth Murder Mystery is just the funniest thing ever written. Read on."It was a stupid mistake to make," said the American woman I had met at my hotel in the English lake country, "but it was on the counter with the other Penguin books--the little sixpenny ones, you know, with the paper covers--and I supposed of course it was a detective story. All the others were detective stories. I'd read all the others, so I bought this one without really looking at it carefully. You can imagine how mad I was when I found it was Shakespeare."
I murmured something sympathetically.
"I don't see why the Penguin-books people had to get out Shakespeare plays in the same size and everything as the detective stories," went on my companion.
"I think they have different-colored jackets," I said.
"Well, I didn't notice that," she said. "Anyway, I got real comfy in bed that night and all ready to read a good mystery story and here I had 'The Tragedy of Macbeth'--a book for high-school students.
Like 'Ivanhoe,' " "Or 'Lorna Doone,' " I said.
"Exactly," said the American lady. "And I was just crazy for a good Agatha Christie, or something. Hercule Poirot is my favorite detective."
"Is he the rabbity one?" I asked.
"Oh, no," said my crime-fiction expert. "He's the Belgian one. You're thinking of Mr.. Pinkerton, the one that helps Inspector Bull. He's good, too."
Over her second cup of tea my companion began to tell the plot of a detective story that had fooled her completely--it seems it was the old family doctor all the time. But I cut in on her.
"Tell me," I said. "Did you read 'Macbeth'?"
"I had to read it, she said. "There wasn't a scrap of anything else to read in the whole room."
"Did you like it?" I asked.
"No, I did not," she said, decisively. "In the first place, I don't think for a moment that Macbeth did it."
I looked at her blankly. "Did what?" I asked.
"I don't think for a moment that he killed the King," she said. "I don't think the Macbeth woman was mixed up in it, either. You suspect them the most, of course, but those are the ones that are never guilty--or shouldn't be, anyway."
"I'm 'afraid," I began, "that I--"
"But don't you see?" said the American lady. "It would spoil everything if you could figure out right away who did it. Shakespeare was too smart for that. I've read that people never have figured out 'Hamlet,' so it isn't likely Shakespeare would have made 'Macbeth' as simple as it seems."
I thought this over while I filled my pipe. "Who do you suspect?" I asked, suddenly. "Macduff," she said, promptly.
"Good God!" I whispered, softly.
"Oh Macduff did it, all right," said the murder specialist. Hercule Poirot would have got him easily."
"How did you figure it out?" I demanded.
"Well," she said, "I didn't right away. At first I suspected Banquo. And then, of course, he was the second person killed. That was good right in there, that part. The person you suspect of the first murder should always be the second victim."
"Is that so?" I murmured.
"Oh, yes," said my informant. "They have to keep surprising you. Well, after the second murder I didn't know who the killer was for a while."
"How about Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's sons?" I asked. "As I remember it, they fled right after the first murder. That looks suspicious."
"Too suspicious," said the American lady. "Much too suspicious. When they flee, they're never guilty. You can count on that."
"I believe," I said, "I'll have a brandy," and I summoned the waiter. My companion leaned toward me, her eyes bright, her teacup quivering.
"Do you know who discovered Duncan's body?" she demanded.
I said I was sorry, but I had forgotten.
"Macduff discovers it," she said, slipping into the historical present. "Then he comes running downstairs and shouts, 'Confusion has broke open the Lord's anointed temple' and 'Sacrilegious murder has made his masterpiece' and on and on like that." The good lady tapped me on the knee. "All that stuff was rehearsed," she said. "You wouldn't say a lot of stuff like that, offhand, would you--if you had found a body?" She fixed me with a glittering eye.
"I--" I began.
"You're right!" she said. "You wouldn't! Unless you had practiced it in advance. 'My God, there's a body in here!' is what an innocent man would say." She sat back with a confident glare.
I thought for a while. "But what do you make of the Third Murderer?" I asked. "You know, the Third Murderer has puzzled 'Macbeth' scholars for three hundred years."
"That's because they never thought of Macduff," said the American lady. "It was Macduff, I'm certain. You couldn't have one of the victims murdered by two ordinary thugs-the murderer always has to be somebody important."
"But what about the banquet scene?" I asked, after a moment. "How do you account for Macbeth's guilty actions there,, when Banquo's ghost came in and sat in his chair?"
The lady leaned forward and tapped me on the knee again. "There wasn't any ghost," she said. "A big, strong man like that doesn't go around seeing ghosts -- especially in a brightly lighted banquet hall with dozens of people around. Macbeth was shielding somebody!"
"Who was he shielding?" I asked.
"Mrs. Macbeth, of course," she said. "He thought she did it and he was going to take the rap himself. The husband always does that when the wife is suspected."
"But what," I demanded, "about the sleepwalking scene, then?"
"The same thing, only the other way around," said my companion. "That time she was shielding him. She wasn't asleep at all. Do you remember where it says, 'Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper'?
"Yes," I said.
"Well, people who walk in their sleep never carry lights!" said my fellow-traveler. "They have a second sight. Did you ever hear of a sleepwalker carrying a light?"
"No," I said, "I never did."
"Well, then, she wasn't asleep. She was acting guilty to shield Macbeth."
"I think," I said, "I'll have another brandy," and I called the waiter. When he brought it, I drank it rapidly and rose to go. "I believe," I said, "that you have got hold of something. Would you lend me that 'Macbeth'? I'd like to look it over tonight. I don't feel, somehow, as if I'd ever really read it."
"I'll get it for you," she said. "But you'll find that I am right."
I read the play over carefully that night, and the next morning, after breakfast, I sought out the American woman. She was on the putting green, and I came up behind her silently and took her arm. She gave an exclamation.
"Could I see you alone?" I asked, in a low voice.
She nodded cautiously and followed me to a secluded spot. "You've found out something?" she breathed.
"I've found out," I said, triumphantly, "the name of the murderer!"
"You mean it wasn't Macduff?" she said.
"Macduff is as innocent of those murders," I said, "as Macbeth and the Macbeth woman." I opened the copy of the play, which I had with me, and turned to Act II, Scene 2. Here," I said, "you will see where Lady Macbeth says, 'I laid their daggers ready. He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it.' Do you see?"
"No," said the American woman, bluntly, "I don't."
"But it's simple!" I exclaimed. "I wonder I didn't see it years ago. The reason Duncan resembled Lady Macbeth's father as he slept is that it actually 'was her father!"
"Good God!" breathed my companion, softly.
"Lady Macbeth's father killed the King," I said, "and, hearing someone coming, thrust the body under the bed and crawled into the bed himself."
"But," said the lady, "you can't have a murderer who only appears in the story once. You can't have that."
"I know that," I said, and I turned to Act II, Scene 4. "It says here, 'Enter Ross with an old Man.' Now, that old man is never identified and it is my contention he was old Mr. Macbeth, whose ambition it was to make his daughter Queen. There you have your motive."
"But even then," cried the American lady, "he's still a minor character!"
"Not," I said, gleefully, "when you realize that he was also one of the weird Sisters in disguise!"
"You mean one of the three witches?"
"Precisely," I said. "Listen to this speech of the old man's. 'On Tuesday last, a falcon towering in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.' Who does that sound like?"
"It sounds like the way the three witches talk," said my companion, reluctantly.
"Precisely!" I said again.
"Well," said the American woman, "maybe you're right, but-"
"I'm sure I am," I said. "And do you know what I'm going to do now?"
"No," she said. "What?"
"Buy a copy of 'Hamlet,'" I said, "and solve that!"
My companion's eye brightened. "Then," she said, "you don't think Hamlet did it?"
"I am," I said, "absolutely positive he didn't."
"But who," she demanded, "do you suspect?"
I looked at her cryptically. "Everybody," I said, and disappeared into a small grove of trees as silently as I had come.
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One of his more famous stories is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (nothing like the movie with Ben Stiller I'm told), which is about a hen-pecked husband who copes with the mediocrity of his life by living in a fantasy worl
This is a collection of essays that James Thurber wrote for the New Yorker from the thirties and forties. They each take a portion of life in general, his personal life, fictional characters based on real friends and draw zany, humorous and slightly surreal pictures out of it.One of his more famous stories is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (nothing like the movie with Ben Stiller I'm told), which is about a hen-pecked husband who copes with the mediocrity of his life by living in a fantasy world where he plays the hero in every scenario. Another is The Catbird Seat where a mild-mannered man acts out of character to persuade his boss that an overbearing co-worker is insane and get her fired.
For the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
http://sharonhenning.blogspot.com/201...
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My go-to book when I needed a laugh in my days as a humanities student.
This is my favorite story of his and the reason why I occasionally like to forget my glasses.
The Admiral on the Wheel
When the coloured maid stepped on my glasses the other morning, it was the first time they had
been broken since the late Thomas A. Edison's seventy-ninth birthday. I remember that day well,
because I was working for a
My go-to book when I needed a laugh in my days as a humanities student.
This is my favorite story of his and the reason why I occasionally like to forget my glasses.
The Admiral on the Wheel
When the coloured maid stepped on my glasses the other morning, it was the first time they had
been broken since the late Thomas A. Edison's seventy-ninth birthday. I remember that day well,
because I was working for a newspaper then and I had been assigned to go over to West Orange that
morning and interview Mr Edison. 1 got up early and, in reaching for my glasses under the bed (where 1 always put them), I found that one of my more sober and reflective Scotch terriers was quietly chewing them. Both tortoiseshell temples (the pieces that go over your ears) had been eaten and Jeannie was toying with the lenses in a sort of jaded way. It was in going over to Jersey that day, without my glasses, that I realized that the disadvantages of defective vision (bad eyesight) are at least partially compensated for by its peculiar advantages.
Up to that time I had been in the habit of going to bed when my glasses were broken and lying there until they were fixed again. I had believed I could not go very far without them, not more than a block, anyway, on account of the danger of bumping into things, getting a headache, losing my way. None of those things happened, but a lot of others did. I saw the Cuban flag flying over a national bank, I saw a gay old lady with a grey parasol walk right through the side of a truck, I saw a cat roll across a street in a small striped barrel, I saw bridges rise lazily into the air, like balloons.
I suppose you have to have just the right proportion of sight to encounter such phenomena: I seem to remember that oculists have told me I have only two-fifths vision without what one of them referred to as 'artificial compensation' (glasses).
With three-fifths vision or better, I suppose the Cuban flag would have been an American flag, the gay old lady a garbage man with a garbage can on his back, the cat a piece of butcher's paper blowing in the wind, the floating bridges smoke from tugs, hanging in the air. With perfect vision, one is extricably trapped in the workaday world, a prisoner of reality, as lost in the commonplace America of 1937 as Alexander Selkirk was lost on his lonely island.
For the hawk-eyed person life has none of those soft edges which for me blur into fantasy; for such a person an electric welder is merely an electric welder, not a radiant fool setting off a sky-rocket by day. The kingdom of the partly blind is a little like Oz, a little like Wonderland, a little like Poictesme. Anything you can think of, and a lot you never would think of, can happen there.
For three days after the maid, in cleaning the apartment, stepped on my glasses - I had not put them far enough under the bed - I worked at home and did not go uptown to have them fixed. It was in this period that I made the acquaintance of a remarkable Chesapeake spaniel.
I looked out my window and after a moment spotted him, a noble, silent dog lying on a ledge above the entrance to a brownstone house in lower Fifth Avenue. He lay there, proud and austere, for three days and nights, sleepless, never eating, the perfect watchdog. No ordinary dog could have got up on the high ledge above the doorway, to begin with; no ordinary people would have owned such an animal. The ordinary people were the people who walked by the house and did not see the dog.
Oh, I got my glasses fixed finally and I know that now the dog has gone, but I haven't looked to see what prosaic object occupies the spot where he so staunchly stood guard over one of the last of the old New York houses on Fifth Avenue; perhaps an unpainted flowerbox or a cleaning cloth dropped from an upper window by a careless menial. The moment of disenchantment would be too hard; I never look out that particular window any more.
Sometimes at night, even with my glasses on, I see strange and unbelievable sights, mainly when I am riding in an automobile which somebody else is driving (I never drive myself at night out of fear that I might turn up at the portals of some mystical monastery and never return). Only last summer I was riding with someone along a country road when suddenly I cried at him to look out. He slowed down and asked me sharply what was the matter. There is no worse experience than to have someone shout at you to look out for something you don't see.
What this driver didn't see and I did see (two-fifths vision works a kind of magic in the night) was a little old admiral in full-dress uniform riding a bicycle at right angles to the car I was in. He might have been starlight behind a tree, or a billboard advertising Moxie; I don't know - we were quickly past the place he rode out of; but I would recognize him if I saw him again. His beard was blowing in the breeze and his hat was set at a rakish angle, like Admiral Beatty's. He was having a swell time. The gentleman who was driving the car has been, since that night, a trifle stiff and distant with me. I suppose you can hardly blame him.
To go back to my daylight experiences with the naked eye, it was me, in case you have heard the story, who once killed fifteen white chickens with small stones. The poor beggars never had a chance. This happened many years ago when I was living at Jay, New York. I had a vegetable garden some seventy feet behind the house, and the lady of the house had asked me to keep an eye on it in my spare moments and to chase away any chickens from neighbouring farms that came pecking around.
One morning, getting up from my typewriter, I wandered out behind the house and saw that a flock of white chickens had invaded the garden. I had, to be sure, mis¬placed my glasses for the moment but I could still see well enough to let the chickens have it with ammunition from a pile of stones that I kept handy for the purpose. Before I could be stopped, I had riddled all the tomato plants in the garden, over the tops of which the lady of the house had, the twilight before, placed newspapers and paper bags to ward off the effects of frost. It was one of the darker experiences of my dimmer hours.
Some day, I suppose, when the clouds are heavy and the rain is coming down and the pressure of realities is too great, I shall deliberately take my glasses off and go wandering out into the streets. I daresay I may never be hearв of again (I have always believed it was Ambrose Bierce's vision and not his whim that caused him to wander into oblivion). I imagine I'll have a remark¬able time, wherever I end up.
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Genre: essays
Rating: B
Conclusion:
50% very funny....the rest so-s0.
Finished while watching EuroVision Song Festival 2019
...turned off the sound because
so many people just can't sing!
Even surprise guest Madonna has trouble hitting the high
notes these days! Finished: 19.05.2019
Genre: essays
Rating: B
Conclusion:
50% very funny....the rest so-s0.
Finished while watching EuroVision Song Festival 2019
...turned off the sound because
so many people just can't sing!
Even surprise guest Madonna has trouble hitting the high
notes these days! ...more
What I remember
It is possible that I had first come to enjoy the works of James Thurber from before I could read. We had several of his books including the 1945 addition of The Thurber Carnival. In the course of flipping through them I would've found and certainly enjoyed his childlike drawing style long before I came to appreciate itssometimes subtle and sophisticated humor. Some years later I would've read the several Thurber books we had and then for some reason not return to him for decades.What I remember most from that first reading was how many of the stories I found quite funny. What struck me most forcibly in this newer edition is how many stories were not intended as humor. Early in his career James Thurber was taken on as a writer for then brand-new magazine the New Yorker the joke was that he came in as an editor and worked his way down to be a writer. How much the character and personality of the New Yorker in 2015 is a continuation of traditions that James Thurber and his editor and friend Harold Ross ( for whom the book is dictated) built in the 1930s is a subject more appropriate for English major dissertations. If these pieces are foundational they speak of an editorial policy that had for clever New York sophisticates and simpler Ohio country people.
The Thurber Carnival is divided up into several pieces a few not before published in book form but most drawn from earlier collections. Of course we have The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and one of my own favorites The Unicorn in the Garden. Although possibly the single funniest piece is his one-page rewrite of Little Red Riding Hood.
What I had forgotten for my original read those several decades ago was how many of these pieces are not intended to be humor. When speaking of the family bulldog there is a certain respect bordering on reverence some of the other pieces are more profiles but not quite caricatures. This speaks to Thurber's ability to hone his language. There is care and precision in Thurber's use of the language such that he can sneer or lightly satirize with very small shifts in word choice. He certainly can be heavy-handed and there are pieces where one suspects his various medical histories and swiftly failing eyesight were more in command of what is on the page than what a less physically frustrating life would've produced. James Thurber seem to be one of those who is best able to praise every era except his own. In this respect it is interesting to see a man of almost 100 years ago complaining about the eminence of the collapse of civilization in many of the same terms one can find in 2015 or an 1815.
Much of the last 50 or so pages of this book highlight Thurber the cartoonist modern critic might speak to his economy of line in his impressionistic representation of intent rather than literal photographic reproduction of figures and animals. This would suggest that he was capable of photographic reproduction. Likely he had no interest in attempting photo-realism. He drawings only appear to be crude. A few curves create a period style woman's cloth hat, or a dogs worried expression. In one cartoon a disheveled woman, carrying a pistol has barged into a couples flat to ask if `You folks have any .38 cartridges?
How well his pre-World war II humor translates into the 21st century may be a matter of taste. Little of what he says about marriage should be taken literally but it rarely assumes the woman's point of view. Alternately he seems to have little use for weak overly accommodating women. In his cartoon story, the War between Men and Women, he has the men winning, but his women are not bowed by defeat. Thurber women smash the ball in Croquet, or throw it when bowling.
The Thurber Carnival does not strike me as consistently clever as an equal quantity of Mark Twain, or as slick as early Woody Allen College Comedy. I rarely found myself laughing. There much in The Thurber Carnival that should have you smiling and the rest will help you to see into a period of time before now, but not that far removed.
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"The Thurber Carnival" covers the range of the author's works from previously uncoll
James Thurber was a gifted humorist and denizen of the Algonquin Hotel, although not a member of its famous Round Table despite being employed at The New Yorker. He thrived on satire rather than the sophomoric practical jokes of Parker and Benchley's Vicious Circle but Thurber also was grounded in his Mid-Westerner and Ohioan upbringing. His domain is that of the middle class home not Broadway and the Big Apple."The Thurber Carnival" covers the range of the author's works from previously uncollected stories to samples from his major collections to a selection of fables and cartoons from The New Yorker and other sources. Humor has a way of losing its relevance and zing over time and Thurber is not immune to this effect, however, general human behavior does not change that thoroughly so like Shakespeare Thurber often taps into the core source of humor - the human comedy of existence.
The author has also crystallized a period of middle class history lost to us today. Thurber in "A Sequence of Servants" captures the lost era of the American domestic, a time before labor-saving devices and after in-home serving staffs. These lone dwellers in American attics both aided American homemakers and provided antics for his stories. Perhaps most significantly and most challenging for the contemporary reader will be Thurber's snapshot of the the migration of African Americans out of the South as framed in his reflection on his mother's domestic employees, a snapshot that reveals their work, their culture, and their aspirations.
All in all, there is much more than just chuckles in this book - there is also much wisdom.
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Thurber's stories of word games, life on the New Yorker staff, his adventures with nearsightedness, etc always charmed me, and some of the cartoons (Such as: 'For the last time, you and your horsie get away from me.') have stuck with me, though I often forget which collect
I once read a comment in which a man said he had no doubt Superman could fly or do all the other stuff, but 'Who ever heard of a mild-mannered reporter?" When I proposed the question to my mother she suggested 'James Thurber'?Thurber's stories of word games, life on the New Yorker staff, his adventures with nearsightedness, etc always charmed me, and some of the cartoons (Such as: 'For the last time, you and your horsie get away from me.') have stuck with me, though I often forget which collection they're in.
I've recently reread an article Thurber wrote called "Bacward and Downward with Mr Punch" about Thurber's perusal of some bound volumes of Punch. I'd already read many of the Punch magazines from the (19)70s on, but Thurber's discussions led me to examine the nineteenth-century volumes.
If for nothing esle, I owe Thurber thanks for leading me to a source of enrichement for my life. But there was more. Much more. If I see a copy of this book around, I think I'll buy it.
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I think this was a best seller in the 40s and all of the classic Thurber is here, "Walter Mitty", "Catbird Seat", and the drawings. Like all great writers Thurber creates a world of his own that is a privilege to visit.
The only dated sections are those devoted to making fun of black dialect. In the age of "Amos and Andy" calling holiday wreaths "holiday reeves", may hav
For some reason this book seems to multiply in my house like rabbits. I have 4 copies if you count the one that the dog chewed.I think this was a best seller in the 40s and all of the classic Thurber is here, "Walter Mitty", "Catbird Seat", and the drawings. Like all great writers Thurber creates a world of his own that is a privilege to visit.
The only dated sections are those devoted to making fun of black dialect. In the age of "Amos and Andy" calling holiday wreaths "holiday reeves", may have been funny. Now it feels mean spirited if not racist.
I was encouraged to see Thurber join the Library of America a few years ago. I worried that he might join some of those other period humorists like Josh Billings or Finley Peter Dunne who are just historical curiosities today.
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A sense of dread pervades many of the stories about married couples. The family tales (Grandpa fell off the bed!) are most amusing. Also, I enjoyed the Columbus tales
With a combination of nostalgia and ennui, I reread The Thurber Carnival a few stories at a time as amusing bedtime reading. While, as mentioned in other reviews, the witty stories are certainly of a specific era –the 1930s– like a dirty martini, Thurber's dry wit provides a tingling mild joy followed by a blurry mirthful confusion.A sense of dread pervades many of the stories about married couples. The family tales (Grandpa fell off the bed!) are most amusing. Also, I enjoyed the Columbus tales, being a fellow Ohio State graduate. Was there really a flood panic in the 1910s? How tall are his tales? That mystery is part of his charm.
It's the joyous absurdity that defines his writing and iconic cartoons. As a kid, I enjoyed his work, while not completely understanding it all (my brother and I also enjoyed other vintage amusements like The Marx Brothers and their Harpo connection to the Algonquin Round Table of authors).
Does anyone remember the TV show, "My World and Welcome To it"? Actor William Windom played a Thurber-eque writer with an animated pet dog. He later toured with a show as Thurber, with projected images of Thurber's comics. I attended on a school trip to the Cleveland Playhouse.
Unfortunately, most teens did not get the subtle one-liners. Then the projector malfunctioned, and Windom got upset and had to start over. The kids giggled at the mishap, but having already had a few community theatre mishaps of my own, I felt mortified on Windom's behalf. In retrospect, it was actually a very Thurber-esque moment.
Anyway, a faded 1945 hardcover edition has traveled with me from Ohio home to New York City and now San Francisco. I carefully reread it, as the yellowed pages have become fragile. The book remains in fairly good condition, considering it's 75 years old.
But it led my thoughts astray to wonder about publishing books with such aged paper, for a lark. Perhaps the market for faux-vintage books might be too limited. Never mind.
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*noted tattoo hater and thurber enjoyer
Regardless, Thurber's humor is indeed very timeless and happy. The innocence and simplicity of his writing is a refreshing distraction in any reading regimen, and I truly hope that you decide to pick up this hilarious volume as soon as you can.
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The secret life of Walter Mitty
The Catbird Seat
If Grant had been Drinking at Appomatox
The Two Hamburgers
All right have it your war - You heard a seal bark
Thurber portrays the good old days when the mere possession of a university degree guaranteed one a comfortable middle class existence. It wa
This is an excellent collection of the most popular American cartoonist of the first half of the twentieth century. It contains many of his highly quirky cartoons and most of his major successes including:The secret life of Walter Mitty
The Catbird Seat
If Grant had been Drinking at Appomatox
The Two Hamburgers
All right have it your war - You heard a seal bark
Thurber portrays the good old days when the mere possession of a university degree guaranteed one a comfortable middle class existence. It was still possible to pass if one attended more parties than classes. All your peers expected you to do was to root for the college team during the fall football season and not be a party pooper. Thurber gently pokes fun at this peculiarly American style of lotus-eating that he nonetheless heartily endorsed.
The Thurber way of life ended in the 1970s when the success of the Japanese and German economies meant that there would be less and less space in America for unambitious idlers who expected to live comfortably. Read this book for a consistently high level of writing and a generous disdain for those who believe that they need to work hard in in order to lead a good life. Personally I shed no tears for Thurber's good old days but many people still do.
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"--and you shall have it!" he cried.
lol lol lol
I still use this gag on prank phone calls myself, from time to time.
One of the simplest, yet most penetrating analyses of American life which is as true now as it was then. The American people's stupidity, pomposity, and ego are a constant from age to age.
"...supply of lightbulbs which--he confessed it was his pleasure--to hurl against a brick wall..."
Never laugh off the threat of an irate man when you are bathing in his p
"...I demand satisfaction!""--and you shall have it!" he cried.
lol lol lol
I still use this gag on prank phone calls myself, from time to time.
One of the simplest, yet most penetrating analyses of American life which is as true now as it was then. The American people's stupidity, pomposity, and ego are a constant from age to age.
"...supply of lightbulbs which--he confessed it was his pleasure--to hurl against a brick wall..."
Never laugh off the threat of an irate man when you are bathing in his personal tub.
Never run down the street in your hometown, shouting an alarm that the dam is about to burst and that people should flee for their lives.
In particular Thurber's hand-drawn cartoons of dogs and their masters are rip-roaring, side-splittingly funny.
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Thurber's stories are just short little pieces about his life, but they are so funny. And he illustrates them himeslf, badly, but they are so
Ah, I LOVE this book. In my Christmas-can't-concentrate-on-anything mindset I've been reading familiar favorites, including this. Thurber's stories completely totally kill me - I've literally laughed out loud while reading. "The Night the Bed Fell" is a classic, and I do love the stories about the day the damn broke, and the string of maids his family had.Thurber's stories are just short little pieces about his life, but they are so funny. And he illustrates them himeslf, badly, but they are somehow endearing (like Pierce Brosnan singing in "Mamma Mia"- so bad that it's almost good). I've liked this book forever and have found it's humor and small size the perfect thing to read during the holidays.
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Reread. The book is a collection of writings copryrighted between 1931 and 1945. You may be familiar with some of them. The most famous is perhaps "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". The quality of the pieces is uneven. The humor is definitely from a gentler time. The msunderstandings between men and women and the relationship of people with their pets are the most common themes. My favorite part of the book are the very casual line sketches - my favorite is the grumpy dog.
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Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.
From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He never graduated from the University because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.
From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C. and then at the American Embassy in Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
In 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication. Thurber would contribute both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.
Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June, 1935 to Helen Wismer. His second marriage lasted until he died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn," according to Helen Thurber.
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Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72996.The_Thurber_Carnival
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