Getting Even [Mass Market Paperback]

Woody Allen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 12, 1978

The classic, with 316,000 copies sold to date.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After three decades of prodigious film work (and some unfortunate tabloid adventures as well), it's easy to forget that Woody Allen began his career as one heck of a great comedy writer. Getting Even, a collection of his late '60s magazine pieces, offers a look into Allen's bag of shtick, back when it was new. From the supposed memoirs of Hitler's barber: "Then, in January of 1945, a plot by several generals to shave Hitler's moustache in his sleep failed when von Stauffenberg, in the darkness of Hitler's bedroom, shaved off one of the Führer's eyebrows instead..."

Even though the idea of writing jokes about old Adolf--or addled rabbis, or Maatjes herring--isn't nearly as fresh as it used to be, Getting Even still delivers plenty of laughs. At his best, Woody can achieve a level of transcendent craziness that no other writer can match. If you're looking for a book to dip into at random, or a gift for someone who's seen Sleeper 13 times, Getting Even is a dead lock.

From the Inside Flap

The classic, with 316,000 copies sold to date.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Vintage Books ed edition (August 12, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394726405
• ISBN-13: 978-0394726403
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.4 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Compares July 1, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Nothing can compare to this book and also Side Effects and Without Feathers, by Allen. Dave Barry is funny (although not as funny in recent years). Douglas Adams is hilarious, but he writes novels. These "nonfiction" pieces and short stories by Woody Allen are the funniest things ever written. And if you're concerned because you don't like Woody's whining style in his stand-up and movies, be assured you can't do that in prose. They are two distinct styles and you probably wouldn't even know it was Woody if not for his name on the cover. Read at least one of Woody's three books -- or at least one story from one of these books. Make that one page. If you don't love it, you can put it back on the shelf and at least know you didn't let something fantastic slip by unread.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars As funny as as dated as the early Woody Allen comedies October 18, 2005

By F. Orion Pozo

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Getting Even is one of three early collections of Woody Allen's short humorous articles. The others are Without Feathers and Side Effects. Many of the pieces in Getting Even appeared in magazines, mostly The New Yorker, but also Playboy, and Evergreen Review. While others first appeared in this anthology. In total, there are 17 articles in the collection. Considering that they were written over 35 years ago, there are some references that do not come across well today. Yet as a group they are still quite funny.

<u>The Metterling Lists</u> is a piece of satirical literary criticism of <u>The Collected Laundry Lists of Hans Metterling Vol. 1</u>, a supposedly scholarly work of 437 pages that analyzes the first six laundry lists. Fortunately Mr. Allen only takes seven pages to mock this fictional piece of scholarship.

<u>A Look At Organized Crime</u> provides a very brief history of organized crime in America including the murder of Kid Lipsky by Albert (The Logical Positivist) Corillo who locked Lipsky in a closet and "sucked all the air out through a straw." It also provides a description of a Mafia initiation ceremony and ends with some tips on fighting mobsters.

<u>The Schmeed Memoirs</u> are represented as the recollections of Hitler's barber. Yet they can't be taken too seriously because he claims he didn't know Hitler was a Nazi and thought he worked for the phone company. There is a funny where Hitler fears that Chruchill will grow sideburns before he can. It is humorous to view World War II from the perspective of Hitler's hair.

<u>My Philosophy</u> consists of the Critique of Pure Dread, the Eschatological Dialectics As a Means of Coping with Shingles, and The Cosmos on Five Dollars a Day.... It ends with two Parables and a short list of Aphorisms.

<u>Yes, But Can The Steam Engine Do This?</u> provides a humorous take on the scientific research saga with a history of the Earl of Sandwich's research into developing the sandwich. Starting with his birth in 1718, the tale is filled with bread experiments, research into cold cuts and cheeses, and years of failures followed by his final success and lasting fame.

<u>Death Knocks</u> is a short play in which an inexperienced angel of death, who comes to claim Nat Ackerman's soul, is lured into a losing game of gin rummy and returns empty-handed.

<u>Spring Bulletin</u> is Woody Allen's satirical take on college course descriptions. It includes a course called Introduction to God which is described as "Confrontation with the Creator of the universe through informal lectures and field trips."

The next piece, a guide to the interpretation of Hassidic tales, includes tales like the following and Mr. Allen's interpretations of them.

A man journeyed to Chelm to seek the advice of Rabbi Ben Kaddish.

"Rabbi " the man asked, "where can I find peace?"

The Hassid surveyed him and said, "Quick, look behind you!"

The man turned around, and Rabbi Ben Kaddish smashed him in the back of the head with a candlestick. "Is that peaceful enough for you?" he chuckled.

There are six other tales and their interpretations in this piece.

<u>The Gossage-Varbedian Papers</u> tells the sad story of a chess game played at a distance via letters. The correspondence starts out with a missive from Gossage stating that one of his letters must have gotten lost in the mail since his chess board is set up differently than Verbedian's. The insults and the confusion worsen as the letters go back and forth. A must for any chess fan.

<u>Notes From The Overfed</u>, Mr. Allen claims, was inspired by reading Dostoyevski and a Weight Watchers magazine on an airplane trip. In it an Atheist is converted when he decides that, if God is everywhere, He must be in food. Then consuming everything in sight, he achieves sanctity and obesity through compulsive eating.

<u>A Twenties Memory</u> mocks the name-dropping memoirs of the post-war lost generation. Filled with references to Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Earnest Hemingway, Alice B. Toklas, and many others, a non-entity tries to gain fame by the shared light of his famous contemporaries.

In <u>Count Dracula</u> the famous vampire wakes up early due to confusion caused by a solar eclipse, and visits the baker and his wife for what he thinks is an evening snack with disastrous consequences.

In <u>A Little Louder, Please</u> a true afficionato of the arts confesses his one failing - an inability to understand the gestures of mimes.

<u>Conversations With Helmholtz</u> consists of notes taken by the student of a famous elderly psychoanalyst of their conversations together. Senility has certainly gotten the better of the older man, but his reputation and fame keep the younger man from realizing this with humorous results.

<u>Viva Vargas</u> is subtitled Excepts From The Diary of A Revolutionary, and reveals much of the same humor that the author later used in the movie Bananas.

<u>The Discovery And Use of The Fake Ink Blot</u> provides a humorous social history of a device used in practical jokes.

The last story in the volume, <u>Mr. Big</u>, is my favorite. It is narrated by a Philip Marlowesque detective who is hired by a lovely woman claiming to be a Vassar student. She wants him to find a missing person, God. The mixture of Raymond Chandler's format with the existential search for the meaning of life is extremely funny even after the passage of many years.

All in all, if you like the early Woody Allen movies, you will love this book - even though some of the material is no longer as fresh. Read more ›

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Allen's Raw material January 22, 2003

By R. J. Marsella

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Reading this is like participating in Allen's creative process since many of the short sketches here are reminiscent of scenes from Allen's earlier films. Very funny stuff that had me laughing out loud. However it's best to read this and imagine Woody Allen's voice is telling the stories, it makes them even funnier. Not all of the sketches work as well as others but when he's on the sketches are hysterical. A very short collection of Woody Allen shorts.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sharp and tight writing June 27, 2000

By Mike Stone

Format:Mass Market Paperback

For someone with no exposure to Woody's prose, this was a revelation. What a smart writer he is! He manages to find a unique voice, and with this voice he beats his own obsessions to a pulp, until they stand up and say 'Uncle'.

Woody gets even with literary biographies, crime, philosophy (and philosophy and more philosophy), death, religion, intellectualism, political revolutions, psychology, and of course, mimes.

My favourite piece is the last one: 'Mr. Big'. It's a brilliant Raymond Chandler parody, where the blonde bombshell who comes into the private eye's life is not looking for a missing husband, but proof of the existence of God! Ingenious! There's one passage where the detective deduces that since Socrates killed himself, Jesus was murdered, and Neitzche went crazy, then there is someone out there and He doesn't want to be found.

Woody tends to fall back on absurdity for his humour a tad too often (at one point, someone's forehead falls off), and if the collection was any longer it would have gotten tedious. But it's just long enough. Bite sized and tasty.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Monty Python in New Yorkish and with a point January 2, 2000

By Bjorn Clasen

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Even for people who do not like Woody Allen's movies, his satiric books must give a great laugh!

This man is so intelligent that he allows himself to un-taboo'ize just about everything. He makes fun of religion without being blasphemic, about stereotypes without being prejudicial, and so on.

This is the most sophisticated fun any American has ever come up with!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars love, lies, and gin rummy June 20, 2011

By R. McOuat

Format:Mass Market Paperback

"Getting Even" is a compilation of exceptional short stories that chronicle Woody Allen's transition from variety show writer to stand-up comedian. He ended 50s as one of the horses in an amazing stable of writers on "Your Show of Shows" that included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, and Carl Reiner. Showcasing his patented wry humor, the stories in "Getting Even" have the post-vaudevillian variety show feel to them. He lampoons intellectual, philosophical and psychological traditions and especially enjoys exploiting the old Jewish stereotypes. Each story is fast paced and peppered with one-liners and guarantees at least one good chuckle. An entertaining book that is rife with painfully accurate insights into the absurdities of our everyday life.