Customer Reviews

Barefoot Boy With Cheek

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When I was in high school I was a big fan of the writer Max Shulman. He published "Barefoot Boy With Cheek" in 1943 when he was in his early twenties, a new graduate of the University of Minnesota. ("The University of Minnesota is, of coure, wholly imaginary.") There he had earned a reputation as the editor of "Ski-U-Mah," the campus humor magazine. He published a half dozen novels, two of which became musical comedies on Broadway, while two others became television series and movies. He is probably best known for "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," which became a successful TV series, and "The Tender Trap," a movie starring Debbie Reynolds.

I recently came across a well-worn copy of "Barefoot Boy---" in a used-book store and read it again. It's an outrageous satire of college life, a story of the hilarious freshman year of Asa Hearthrug at the (imaginary) University of Minnesota.

"St. Paul and Minneapolis extend from the Mississippi River like the legs on a pair of trousers. Where they join is the University of Minnesota."

Asa is promptly registered into a liberal arts program in order to become a "well rounded-out personality," and is then recruited into the Alpha Cholera fraternity, where he emotionally joins in singing the frat song:

"Stand, good men, take off your hat
To Alpha Cholera, our swell frat.
In our midst you'll find no rat,
And don't let anyone tell you that."

He soon meets Yetta Samovar, and is promptly recruited into the Minnesota Chapter of the Subversive Elements League, where he emotionally joins in singing:

"Workers, workers,
Don't be shirkers,
There's a job we have to do.
Flee your prison,
Collectivism
Is the thing for you to do."

Back at Alpha Cholera he gets invited to a sorority song-title party at Beta Thigh, which he attends as "Tea for Two," with a silver tea service balanced on his head. His date, arranged by his frat brother, is the beautiful Noblesse Oblige, whose song title costume includes a smudge pot attached to her navel. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," of course!

Asa becomes torn between Noblesse, the fraternity, and the Belongers, or Yetta, the Subversives, and the Unbelongers.

He loses his bid as the dark horse candidate for the student council, flunks all his classes, and returns to his home at Whistlestop and his girlfriend Lodestone La Toole.

Each chapter of the book is preceded by a penetrating quotation in French or Latin, like the one I chose as the title for this review.

An appreciation, or at least a tolerance, for silliness and absurdity is the minimum requirement to enjoy this outrageous satire of college life. I will highly recommend the book to those with that appreciation or tolerance.

You may or may not be aware of this characteristic of Minnesota Scandinavians: We LOVE to make fun of ourselves!

At the suggestion of my father, who read the book while in the AirCorp in WWII, I decided to read this book. I believe it to be one of the funniest books I have ever read! It is a timeless classic about a small town boy and his transition into college life. It covers all the problems that freshman face: going to see an advisor for suggestions on classes, the courses themselves, the attempt to make friends, the different type of people one meets on a university campus, and the homesickness one feels for their family and an old love. This book is a well written comedy that you will not be able to put down!

This is a satirical look at college life in the early 1940s, written in 1943 by Max Shulman, a popular humorist from that era. The story's narrator and protagonist is Asa Hearthrug, an appealingly naïve country bumpkin who is off to his freshman year at the University of Minnesota, which Shulman - in one of the book's funniest passages - identifies as a "wholly imaginary" institution in the book's foreword. From there the book progresses as a kind of comedy of errors, all of which serve to introduce characters with improbable names that were undoubtedly funny and/or subversive at the time (Noblesse Oblige, Shylock Fiscal, Eino Ffliikkiinnenn), and situations that almost certainly reflected the cultural mileposts of the era.

Satire (as opposed to straight comedy) almost never ages well, because it depends so heavily on the current events it strives to skewer. As a result contemporary readers generally miss the nuances of narration and dialogue meant to reflect events and speech patterns of the time. That is definitely the case with this book, which is naturally heavy with slang, phraseology and pop culture references that lost their relevance long ago. Having said that, Max Shulman was clearly a gifted comic writer, and with this book he left us with some brilliant and timeless humor. While I've read a lot of supposedly humorous literature, the only material that really resonates and stays with me are the books that create truly memorable characters (think "Confederacy of Dunces" and "Tomcat In Love") or whose wordplay can charm and challenge me while making me laugh out loud (think "Catch 22" and "The Sot-Weed Factor"). I would put this book into the latter category, though by no means on the same literary scale.

I read this book at the suggestion of a friend who actually went to college in this era. While it's out of print and hard to find, this book strikes me as an amusing period piece, a snapshot in time with a handful of themes that might still be relevant today, told with some delightful turns of phrase. More than anything, it gave me some insights into the sense of humor the prevailed at that time, and which many of that dwindling generation still possess.

I first read this book in high school (in the mid '50's). I still haven't stopped laughing when I think about it. I want my h/s son to read it, since he's thinking about going to college soon. I think Asa's adventures would help him. Or, have I misspelled "Asa's name." I sure hope not. It's a great book, really, and are Shulman's others.

I think I read all of Max Schulman's books while attending Florida State University in 1947, the year FSU was born. Until then, except for The Holy Bible, I had read little fiction and suddenly realized what I'd been missing. The best part was talking with girls about my new reading habit. It apparently impressed them and I got laid a lot. Thanks, Max.