Customer Reviews

Of All Things! (Common Reader Editions)

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This collection of Benchley's writings, appearing in magazines prior to 1920 or so, pleases the reader on several levels. There are articles whose humor hasn't faded in the 80 or more years since they were written such as "Coffee, Megg and Ilk," or "The Passing of the Orthodox Paradox," containing a nice parody of Oscar Wilde's plays. I think these are as funny to us as they were to the readers when they were written. There are others, such as "Lesson Number One," that tells about learning to drive at a time when an automobile was as exotic a possession as, say, a home computer in the early 1990s. These are funny in a different way, and I enjoyed reading them even though the things they laugh at are decades out of date.

Anyone who has suffered through learning to play bridge will enjoy "Not According to Hoyle," and those who sympathize with the record number of Americans finding it hard to pay all their bills will delight in "Turning Over a New Ledger Leaf." Those who read old literature will get a kick out of his pastiche of annotated Shakespeare in "Shakespeare Explained," and anybody who has read a novel in which the plot is advanced by letters exchanged between two viewpoint characters will laugh at "When Genius Remained Your Humble Servant."

All in all, an excellent collection of humor writings not available elsewhere.

I've loved Benchley since I stumbled on a collection of his short pieces in my father's library as a kid. Like any writer who turns out material in such volume, the pieces are a bit hit or miss, and they should definitely be read a few at a time, rather than straight through. But at his best, Benchley was both a hilarious writer and a keen observer of the passing parade. The fact that these pieces were written 90 or more years ago doesn't detract from enjoying them. In fact, some of the most dated piece are the best.

Unfortunately, this Kessinger reprint edition isn't of the highest quality. Here is their disclaimer from the front:

"Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to blurring of the original text, possible missing pages, missing text, dark backgrounds and other issues beyond our control."

Not too clear why these issues are beyond their control. In the case of this book, the main problem is that they have reprinted the original in reduced size. I have no idea why that would have been necessary. Every page has two-inch margins on each edge and type that is reduced in size to an extent that might cause a problem to anyone with vision difficulties. Otherwise, the reproduction is pretty good and I didn't detect any missing pages or missing text. As you can see, Kessinger has also replaced the original cover with a very nondescript one. One final problem is that my copy arrived a bit scuffed up. Whether that is a problem with Kessinger or with Amazon, I don't know.

So, if you like Benchley and don't otherwise have access to this book, buying this edition may be worth it. If Kessinger had done a better job of reprinting it, the book would have my unreserved recommendation.

Length:: 2:41 Mins

What did comedy look like before Comedy Central?

It was kinder, gentler, and--yes--it was funny. One remaining artifact from the pre-Cable TV age is "Of All Things" by Robert Benchley.

Allow me, if you would, to explain in my video review of the book.