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5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic essays from a masterful humorist., October 9, 2003
This review is from: Best of S J Perelman (Hardcover)
This is a collection of satirical essays written between 1931 and 1947. But many of remain viable, chuckle inducing observances on life, enjoyable today. Dated elements include the technology of the time or popular culture references, such as Ronald Colman, but the style of the humor is timeless. Imagine Perelman as a rather more literary Mike Nelson, or less sophomoric Dave Barry, and ask yourself if those men will be funny to readers in the year 2068.
Perelman possesses great comedic range, capable of the good-natured warmth and bemusement of Garrison Keillor or Jean Shepherd, detached intellectual dissection of cultural foibles, and inspired sarcasm and zaniness, having scripted some truly wacky films for the Marx Brothers, among his other accomplishments. His commentaries in this book are on subjects as varied as tax deductions, buffaloes, the "Yellow Peril," bitterness from Santa's elves, Vogue Magazine's Woman of Tomorrow, and the assemblage of a Jiffy Cloz moth-proof portable closet. Titles include "Is there an osteosynchrondroitrician in the house?", "Nothing but the Tooth," "Physician, Steel Thyself," and "A Farewell to Omsk." Even if you do not appreciate the puns evident in the titles, do not take that to mean the contents of each are not substantive (and often hilarious); it just means that Perelman extended his funny bone even into naming his compositions. And despite the sharp wit, Perelman never comes across as arrogant or acerbic, avoiding a trap into which many fall by keeping a self-deprecating tone.
Perelman is probably best known for his literary parodies and commentaries, and these are among the best entries in this volume. Included are his famed treatise on spicy pulp auteur Robert Leslie Bellem's creation Dan Turner, "Somewhere a Roscoe..."; dryly funny observances of a small-town orthopedist's memoirs in "Boy Meets Girl Meets Foot"; and his thoughts on the bug-eyed monster-type science fiction popular in the era, called "Captain Future, Block That Kick."
Which brings me to the best of all, the reason I bought this book and why I would have paid ten times what I did to own it: his loving Raymond Chandler spoof "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer." Chandler and Perelman corresponded via letters in the 40's, and the latter knew his subject well. In nine short pages, Perelman affectionately fricassees a great many hard-boiled, first-person, Marlowe-esque PI cliches, as well as sticking brief jabs into plots of James Cain and Dashiell Hammett. This piece is every bit as funny as Neil Simon or Woody Allen's Bogart spoofs, or Ed McBain's deconstruction of Spillane, "Kiss Me, Dudley." And it's dead-on, too, in its exaggerated way, telling the story of an attractive blonde whose husband had been nearly poisoned to death with a rotten herring. Chandler himself might have written it, if he didn't take himself and his art so seriously.
A must-have for humor lovers, buffs of the era, connoisseurs of quality satire, and oddly enough, hard-boiled enthusiasts.
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