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The Thurber Carnival
James Thurber was one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century (and a crack cartoonist to boot). A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1999, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his talent and the breadth of his wit. The stories compiled here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker , are from his uproarious and candid collection My World and Welcome to It —including the American classic "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"—as well as from The Owl in the Attic , The Seal in the Bathroom , and Men, Women and Dogs .
425 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
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About the author
James Thurber
352 books600 followersThurber was born in Columbus, Ohio to Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes (Mame) Fisher Thurber. Both of his parents greatly influenced his work. His father, a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor, is said to have been the inspiration for the small, timid protagonist typical of many of his stories. Thurber described his mother as a "born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known." She was a practical joker, on one occasion pretending to be crippled and attending a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed.
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.
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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April 4, 2017
I don't know how many people of the current generation know James Thurber - maybe the literary group in America, but I don't think many outside of that continent are familiar with him now. My introduction to him was fortuitous. In the late eighties, the national television channel of India Doordarshan aired a series called Mungerilal ke Haseen Sapne ("The Beautiful Dreams of Mungerilal") which I watched and loved: it was based on one of Thurber's stories, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This story about a henpecked husband who finds refuge in daydreams where he acts out different personas (included in this volume) is a true comic gem and a classic of American literature. And it encapsulates, in microcosm, what Thurber is all about.
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.
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.
October 12, 2018
“One has the disturbing feeling that the man contrived to be some place without actually having gone there.”
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.
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.
February 7, 2010
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.
"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.
September 6, 2016
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...
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...
January 2, 2025
The woman had appalled Mr. Martin instantly, but he hadn't shown it. He had given her his dry hand, a look of studious concentration, and a faint smile. "Well," she had said, looking at the papers on his desk, "are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch?" As Mr. Martin recalled that moment, over his milk, he squirmed slightly. He must keep his mind on her crimes as a special adviser, not on her peccadillos as a personality.
- from The Catbird Seat
This volume is a compendium of sixty-four of the best of humorist James Thurber’s short stories. There are plenty that are master class examples of good writing. The stories most on-point are those that involve a protagonist having problems with either his marriage or someone of the opposite sex.
Here are my favourite seven stories from the Thurber Carnival.
The Catbird Seat
The Catbird Seat is one of my favorite short stories. A straight-laced accountant is tormented by his boss’ new assistant, Mrs. Ulgine Barrows, and now he correctly intuits his own department will soon get downsized based on her recommendations. So he hatches a plan to eliminate her. Just a perfect example of how to write both a suspenseful and humorous short story.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Thurber’s most famous story that most of us read way back in high school. Ben Stiller even made the story into a movie a few years ago. My kids really liked the film but I thought it was a bit of a stretch to make it into a full length feature. Anyway it is easy to relate to the childish daydreamer husband who comprises Walter Mitty. There is also a nagging wife who adds a sarcastic and counter-balancing element. It is a brilliant story I think because there is some of Walter Mitty the dreamer and his pragmatic wife within all of us. This creates the tension in the story as we move from one extreme to the other between fantasy and the boredom that makes up everyone’s life.
The Breaking Up of the Winshaws
A husband becomes annoyed with his wife’s passionate belief that Greta Garbo is the world’s greatest actress. He takes a sarcastic position, when asked who could be a better actor, that no Donald Duck is the finest actor of his generation. This silly barb annoys his wife to no end and leads to their separation. This is really a story about incompatibility and simmering resentment that is common in soured relationships. It is also about the inane discussions that adults sometimes have that are emblematic of their broken relationship.
The Wood Duck
A quaint story about a wild duck that begins hanging around a roadside apple cider stand and despite a brush with death returns to the stand.
The Curb in the Sky
A story of how an overbearing wife drives a man into an insane asylum. I am sensing that Thurber may have had some issues with his own marriage? To be fair it is a funny story.
The Day the Dam Broke
A flood inundates Columbus Ohio in 1913 when Thurber was a teenager. This humorous and largely true story recounts the reactions of the townspeople after a rumor spreads. The dam near town has just been breached.
The Scotty who Knew Too Much
A short parable about a Scottish Terrier who always thinks he can lick the new dog in town. But he never listens to the advice of his friends.
Solid 4 stars.
- from The Catbird Seat
This volume is a compendium of sixty-four of the best of humorist James Thurber’s short stories. There are plenty that are master class examples of good writing. The stories most on-point are those that involve a protagonist having problems with either his marriage or someone of the opposite sex.
Here are my favourite seven stories from the Thurber Carnival.
The Catbird Seat
The Catbird Seat is one of my favorite short stories. A straight-laced accountant is tormented by his boss’ new assistant, Mrs. Ulgine Barrows, and now he correctly intuits his own department will soon get downsized based on her recommendations. So he hatches a plan to eliminate her. Just a perfect example of how to write both a suspenseful and humorous short story.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Thurber’s most famous story that most of us read way back in high school. Ben Stiller even made the story into a movie a few years ago. My kids really liked the film but I thought it was a bit of a stretch to make it into a full length feature. Anyway it is easy to relate to the childish daydreamer husband who comprises Walter Mitty. There is also a nagging wife who adds a sarcastic and counter-balancing element. It is a brilliant story I think because there is some of Walter Mitty the dreamer and his pragmatic wife within all of us. This creates the tension in the story as we move from one extreme to the other between fantasy and the boredom that makes up everyone’s life.
The Breaking Up of the Winshaws
A husband becomes annoyed with his wife’s passionate belief that Greta Garbo is the world’s greatest actress. He takes a sarcastic position, when asked who could be a better actor, that no Donald Duck is the finest actor of his generation. This silly barb annoys his wife to no end and leads to their separation. This is really a story about incompatibility and simmering resentment that is common in soured relationships. It is also about the inane discussions that adults sometimes have that are emblematic of their broken relationship.
The Wood Duck
A quaint story about a wild duck that begins hanging around a roadside apple cider stand and despite a brush with death returns to the stand.
The Curb in the Sky
A story of how an overbearing wife drives a man into an insane asylum. I am sensing that Thurber may have had some issues with his own marriage? To be fair it is a funny story.
The Day the Dam Broke
A flood inundates Columbus Ohio in 1913 when Thurber was a teenager. This humorous and largely true story recounts the reactions of the townspeople after a rumor spreads. The dam near town has just been breached.
The Scotty who Knew Too Much
A short parable about a Scottish Terrier who always thinks he can lick the new dog in town. But he never listens to the advice of his friends.
Solid 4 stars.
January 24, 2023
On page 326 is my absolute favorite James Thurber illustration. An obviously disgruntled man is lying in bed and facing away from his wife. She is propped up next to him and is clearly upset as she delivers a cutting remark to him ... "All Right, Have it Your Way--You Heard a Seal Bark." Behind the bed's headboard is a curious seal, casually looking over the room.
I laughed myself silly.
This is typical of the humor of James Thurber, and THE THURBER CARNIVAL is probably the best Introduction to be found of his work. All of the most famous stories of his stories that I've heard mentioned for years are here, including:
* The Catbird Seat
* The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty
* The Night The Bed Fell
* The Night The Ghost Got In
* The Dog That Bit People
* The Unicorn In The Garden
However, there were plenty of other discoveries for me to make that were equally enjoyable. In general, Thurber's writing takes ordinary situations and exaggerates them all out of proportion. He also sheds a hilarious light on ridiculous human behavior ... from "The Day The Dam Broke" to illustrated Fables that (unfortunately) are as true to day as they were when they were written decades ago. There are still many lessons to be learned from them!
Not everything is humorous. A particular favorite discovery of mine was "One Is A Wanderer." It is an unnerving story of the joyless side of living alone. Also, although women do have their wonderful moments, they are frequently the sources of making milquetoast husbands feel miserable. Although I often laughed at these tales, the sheer volume caused me to wonder if Thurber didn't have significant "trust issues" regarding women.
Still, THE THURBER CARNIVAL was a delightful (and often insightful) read for me. Returning to a reading session was frequently like revisiting with a long-time friend.
I laughed myself silly.
This is typical of the humor of James Thurber, and THE THURBER CARNIVAL is probably the best Introduction to be found of his work. All of the most famous stories of his stories that I've heard mentioned for years are here, including:
* The Catbird Seat
* The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty
* The Night The Bed Fell
* The Night The Ghost Got In
* The Dog That Bit People
* The Unicorn In The Garden
However, there were plenty of other discoveries for me to make that were equally enjoyable. In general, Thurber's writing takes ordinary situations and exaggerates them all out of proportion. He also sheds a hilarious light on ridiculous human behavior ... from "The Day The Dam Broke" to illustrated Fables that (unfortunately) are as true to day as they were when they were written decades ago. There are still many lessons to be learned from them!
Not everything is humorous. A particular favorite discovery of mine was "One Is A Wanderer." It is an unnerving story of the joyless side of living alone. Also, although women do have their wonderful moments, they are frequently the sources of making milquetoast husbands feel miserable. Although I often laughed at these tales, the sheer volume caused me to wonder if Thurber didn't have significant "trust issues" regarding women.
Still, THE THURBER CARNIVAL was a delightful (and often insightful) read for me. Returning to a reading session was frequently like revisiting with a long-time friend.
July 15, 2019
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.
"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.
August 4, 2014
Dad was a great fan of James Thurber, having several of his books on the shelves as far back as memory serves and purchasing others as they came out. This was, if not the first, one of the first of the Thurber collections I ever read, Thurber being recommended not only by Dad's taste but by the occasional reading of some of his stories on WFMT radio's "Midnight Special".
January 30, 2016
If he was less sexist/racist, I would really love his books. he is quite funny, occasionally.
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.
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.
May 18, 2019
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!
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!
January 21, 2018
Although times have changed, and some parts of these stories are dated, many still seem relevant and most are very humorous. The added bonus of many of Thurber's cartoons was wonderful. I had many LOL moments. I was in the middle of another book, and thought I'd take a break and read a few of these stories. I ended up reading it straight through in a couple of days! Thanks to Jerome K. Jerome's book Three Men in a Boat:, I found out about some of his contemporary authors, and am eagerly exploring classic 20's (and later) era humor.
June 13, 2017
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.
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.
Read
April 10, 2009I 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.
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.
November 15, 2007
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.
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.
January 7, 2018
I did not connect with the author's style, which I found insipid. With humor at its blandest, the book is also notable for a kind of casual racism and misogyny, which I take as being considered acceptable in its own time. The high points would be "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", and the 'graphic novel' of "The War Between Men and Women".
May 14, 2014
Three words: The Catbird Seat. One of my all-time favorite short stories.
I appreciate Thurber's sense of humor.
I appreciate Thurber's sense of humor.
March 25, 2018
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.
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.
February 1, 2017
I had mixed reactions to this book. I really enjoyed some of the stories, I thought some were just ok, and some seemed very flat to me. Among my favorites were: The Secret Life of James Thurber, The Macbeth Murder Mystery, If Grant Had been Drinking at Appomattox, and One is a Wanderer. I thought that most of the stories from the collection "The Middle-aged Man on the Flying Trapeze" were excellent, with insight and depth that went beyond simple humor. I didn't care much for the extracts from "Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated." I failed to understand a lot of the cartoons, whether because they were just not my thing or because they required a time-context that I don't have, I'm not sure. I definitely didn't appreciate the casual racism and misogyny that peppered some of the stories. That's a feature we frequently encounter in our BYT-era reading and it is always upsetting. Overall though, I enjoyed the book and found myself chuckling fairly often.
November 7, 2023
This book is truly hilarious, one of the funniest books I've ever read. I think that alone is a testament to Thurber's talent. It is difficult to write a good short story. It is difficult to tell a funny joke. To do both at once, over and over, with such original and unique humor, is incredible. The illustrations are a real treat too.
December 6, 2019
Like all of his stories are predicated on how quaint his former house staff were but all his cartoons made me laugh out loud and there’s one drawing of a cat with angry eyebrows that my mom* said I should get a tattoo of after she took an ambien.
*noted tattoo hater and thurber enjoyer
*noted tattoo hater and thurber enjoyer
December 22, 2019
The gentle humor of Thurber contrasts sharply with the current obscenity ladened imitation. Thurber was intended for anyone and usually induced laughter. That can’t be said for today’s baser banality that seems intended to induce embarrassment, anger or squeamishness.
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March 23, 2021I have read this before—or at least parts of it—and was curious to revisit it. However, it only took a couple of the stories for me to realize that I no longer enjoy his style of writing. Instead of continuing to read it when I wasn't enjoying the style, I flipped to my favorite of Thurber's shorts (The Macbeth Murder Mystery) and re-read that, and then returned the volume to my library.
December 16, 2021
Thurber's writing is so wonderfully clear and funny. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Black Magic of Barney Haller are wonderful to read out loud (if you're blessed with a family like mine). There are many other stories collected here, each very short, that are simply fun to read. I dropped a star because of the fables that did nothing for me. Great night-stand book.
December 22, 2022
Leftovers OK tonight?
James Thurber was a popular American humor writer from 1933 (when "My Life and Hard Times" appeared) until his death in 1961. His stories, parodies, and cartoons appeared regularly in the prestigious New Yorker Magazine and his books were best-sellers. Unfortunately, his popularity never translated to great wealth. The New Yorker paid its famous writers very poorly in the early days and many of them reprinted their work into book-length collections to make much-needed income.
Some people turn up their noses at this practice, but to me it makes sense. Not everyone reads magazines, so it was a chance to reach a new audience. And a good story or cartoon is (to my way of thinking) just as good the second time you encounter it. Thurber took the process a step further in this book, lifting stories and cartoons from his earlier collections. So you get some fiction, some non-fiction, some cartons, and some of his witty fables all for a low price. It's a lot of bang for the buck.
I was glad to see that "My Life and Hard Times" is reprinted in full. I think Thurber was at his absolute best when he was writing about his boyhood in Columbus, Ohio and his interesting family. And there are additional stories about his childhood not included in that book. My favorite chapter in "My Life" is the story of Muggs, the dog who bit people and I loved reading about another Thurber dog (Rex) in "Snapshot of a dog." People who worked with Thurber accused him of great vanity and claimed that he could be a malicious trouble-maker. Maybe so, but a man who likes dogs better than people is OK with me.
There are a dozen or so fiction stories, including "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Personally, I prefer Thurbers stories about his own life. Truthfully, characterizing his memoirs as non-fiction may be misleading because there's no question that they contain a lot of exaggeration. Like other great humorists, Thurber never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
I'm not a cartoon-lover, but I think Thurber's cartoons are exceptionally witty and his bizarre drawing style adds to the fun. His animal fables are new to me and I enjoyed them very much. And I loved "The Pet Department", in which Dr. Thurber gives absurd answers to questions supposedly submitted by pet owners.
If you've read everything Thurber ever wrote, this book will be repetitious. But if you're like me and have missed a lot of his stuff, it's great reading. Some writing dates, but humor writing that focuses on the weaknesses and absurdities of human nature and human relationships is always fresh and funny. This is hours of entertaining reading for a few dollars.
James Thurber was a popular American humor writer from 1933 (when "My Life and Hard Times" appeared) until his death in 1961. His stories, parodies, and cartoons appeared regularly in the prestigious New Yorker Magazine and his books were best-sellers. Unfortunately, his popularity never translated to great wealth. The New Yorker paid its famous writers very poorly in the early days and many of them reprinted their work into book-length collections to make much-needed income.
Some people turn up their noses at this practice, but to me it makes sense. Not everyone reads magazines, so it was a chance to reach a new audience. And a good story or cartoon is (to my way of thinking) just as good the second time you encounter it. Thurber took the process a step further in this book, lifting stories and cartoons from his earlier collections. So you get some fiction, some non-fiction, some cartons, and some of his witty fables all for a low price. It's a lot of bang for the buck.
I was glad to see that "My Life and Hard Times" is reprinted in full. I think Thurber was at his absolute best when he was writing about his boyhood in Columbus, Ohio and his interesting family. And there are additional stories about his childhood not included in that book. My favorite chapter in "My Life" is the story of Muggs, the dog who bit people and I loved reading about another Thurber dog (Rex) in "Snapshot of a dog." People who worked with Thurber accused him of great vanity and claimed that he could be a malicious trouble-maker. Maybe so, but a man who likes dogs better than people is OK with me.
There are a dozen or so fiction stories, including "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Personally, I prefer Thurbers stories about his own life. Truthfully, characterizing his memoirs as non-fiction may be misleading because there's no question that they contain a lot of exaggeration. Like other great humorists, Thurber never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
I'm not a cartoon-lover, but I think Thurber's cartoons are exceptionally witty and his bizarre drawing style adds to the fun. His animal fables are new to me and I enjoyed them very much. And I loved "The Pet Department", in which Dr. Thurber gives absurd answers to questions supposedly submitted by pet owners.
If you've read everything Thurber ever wrote, this book will be repetitious. But if you're like me and have missed a lot of his stuff, it's great reading. Some writing dates, but humor writing that focuses on the weaknesses and absurdities of human nature and human relationships is always fresh and funny. This is hours of entertaining reading for a few dollars.
July 31, 2011
What is interesting about my approach to this book is that I really had nothing interesting to say about James Thurber prior to reading it. As an avid subscriber and historian of the New Yorker magazine, I was familiar with some of his cartoons and his short nonfiction pieces, but I had never really decided to sit down and read this volume until I bought it (as I think I remember) at a library clearance sale. It was a hilarious examination of life and the human experience, and a real definitive collection of his works. I find it very interesting that he is not a bigger contribution to a classical popular culture, but interestingly right when I finished the book I was in Orlando at Disney in line for Splash Mountain when I ran into a guy that had a James Thurber T-Shirt on. I made a comment on it and how I thought it was quite the fashion and intellectual statement - he replied that he was quite surprised that I even knew who James Thurber was as his wife rilled her eyes behind him.
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.
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.
October 4, 2014
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.
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.
March 12, 2022
There are a number of essayists I like and admire, and many great authors of humorous short stories, from P. G. Wodehouse to David Sedaris. But James Thurber has always had a special place in my heart, in part because my dad read me his stories when I was young, and in part because there's just no one quite like him.
Thurber's blend of absurdity, hilarity, and poignancy is a sheer delight. My Life and Hard Times will always be my favorite collection, but the Carnival adds much to that with classics like "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Admiral on the Wheel", and "The Black Magic of Barney Haller", plus a great collection of Thurber's cartoons and illustrations.
He has you rolling with laughter, then stops you in your tracks with a simply phrased but keenly honed thrust to your heart.
"That was twenty-five years ago, but it is one of the few things in my life I would like to live over again if I could. I don't suppose that I can, now."
(from "The Car We Had to Push")
Thurber's blend of absurdity, hilarity, and poignancy is a sheer delight. My Life and Hard Times will always be my favorite collection, but the Carnival adds much to that with classics like "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Admiral on the Wheel", and "The Black Magic of Barney Haller", plus a great collection of Thurber's cartoons and illustrations.
He has you rolling with laughter, then stops you in your tracks with a simply phrased but keenly honed thrust to your heart.
"That was twenty-five years ago, but it is one of the few things in my life I would like to live over again if I could. I don't suppose that I can, now."
(from "The Car We Had to Push")
June 18, 2017
"...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.
"--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.
December 29, 2008
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.
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.
January 30, 2008
Allie and I often lament that somewhere along the way we lost the no-holds-barred, gravity-defying imaginations we had as kids. James Thurber is one of those rare - and incredibly lucky - people who never lost his. "The Thurber Carnival" is simply sublime. With such ebullient gems as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Unicorn in the Garden", "The Catbird Seat" and that little cartoon with the basset hound following an insect, you'd be a Scrooge indeed if this collection did not warm your heart and put a smile on your face.
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