Customer Reviews

Laughter's Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just ran a search on Robert Benchley at Amazon and when this book came up I was surprised to see that it only got two and a half stars (based on 5 votes). I read this book when it first came out a few years ago. I remember thinking it was interesting and well-written. It seems like some of the negative reviews given to the book here, came from the reviewers being disappointed that this is a biography of the man, and not a critical breakdown/dissection of his work and writings.

And this book <i>is</i> primarily a biography, so, knowing that going in, I think you will not be disappointed.

After reading Marion Meade's "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?", I bought this book to learn more about Robert Benchley, which I did.

Meade, who spared little if anything when writing about Parker (which made for an excellent read) pulled no punches with Benchley, either. Described in detail are his good and bad (i.e., womanizing) qualities.

Altman definitely takes a gentler view of Benchley, which from what I've read here and elsewhere, is what the world in general seemed to do; Benchley's messy personal life never seemed to detract from his image, with the public as well as with friends, of a genial, kind, sweet and funny family man.

Other reviewers have criticized Altman for not going more into depth about what kind of person Benchley was and what made him that way, but in this age of trashy, spare-no-detail celebrity biographies, I didn't think that was always a negative attribute.

All in all, I enjoyed this book, in large part for the good quantity of Benchley's work featured therein. You may not get all the dirty details, but in the case of Robert Benchley, I didn't really want them.

I could not have come up with a better title for this book if I had tried. There's just something about Benchley - be it the writer or the man - that , to me, has always been irresistable. He is the personification of American wit! The short films he produced for Paramount and MGM between 1928 and 1945 are treasures in the history of American Humor. All of them should be released on DVD. As of this writing, only a handful of Paramounts are now commercially available.

Altman's fine biography is a sympathetic look at the man and what shaped him into being who he was. Particularly of interest is the death of his older brother in the Spanish American War in 1899 and the effect it had on Benchley as a child.

This book could have been better, no question about it. But until a better one comes along (don't hold your breath), it is as fine a reference as any ever written. Sixty-one years after his death, no one has replaced him. He was a real S.O.B. Sweet Old Bob! God rest his merry soul.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
[...]

How delighted I was that I stumbled across this biography of America's original humorist, Robert Benchley. And how disappointed I was when I finished it. Benchley lived a fascinating life, and Altman managed to make it dry as dust.

What did we learn of Benchley thanks to Altman's hard work? We learned that he was devastated by the loss of his older brother in a war; we learned that he had an unusual relationship with an older, spiteful woman who funded his Harvard education and asked him for repayment when he was a famous writer; we learned that he was almost universally beloved as a wit and as a loyal friend; we learned that he had a loveless marriage and some affairs later in life; and we learn that he went from teetotaler to alcoholic, which ultimately contributed to the end of his life. What we never learn from Altman is how any of these things affected Benchley's life, or contributed to the making of the man.

The book earns one star, however, and that is because it assembles a handful of the ur-Benchley essays and short films. The few genuine chuckles -- and not coincidentally, the few moments of insight -- came from Benchley's own mouth, not Altman's. The episode at the end of Benchley's Vanity Fair career, when Benchley risks his career for his friends, including Dorothy Parker, was probably the only true insight into the man with which I walked away from the book. And the best guffaw I had out of the book was Benchley's later Life magazine review of Billie Burke's performance. That was the only nutritious morsel from a book I had hopes of being a feast. I am still hungry.

This book only rises to two stars because it quotes several whole dollops of the wonderful humorist's work. One must grudgingly admit that Altman manages to plod through the external events of his subject's lilfe, and as far as these are interesting (some are) the book is interesting. But Altman fails to analyse Benchley's work -- fails to connect his humor to events in his life or the work of other humorists and writers of the time. The book's early chapters are hopelessly bogged down in detail from Benchley's journals, only a few of which are either illuminating or interesting. The style throughout is pedestrian (except, of course, in the quotations.) A reader interested in Benchley would be far better advised to seek out the writings of the master himself.

I hate to wet on anyone's parade, but what several other "reviewers" have been reviewing is Robert Benchley's work, not that of Billy Altman. Indeed, the humorist left us a wonderful body of film and print works to tickle us for decades. But, unfortunately, Mr. Altman, while obviously a fan of Robert Benchley's work, does not do any analysis or contribute anything original to the discussion of the humorist's life or work (see some of the professional reviews available on this site). The book makes little good use of all the research Mr. Altman obviously did. On the path of being a fan of Benchley's, Altman never learned much about how or why Benchley wrote the way he did or what made him special. There is no questioning Altman's affection for his subject. But that just makes it all the sadder that this lengthy work doesn't add any substantial contributions to the canon of Benchley-ana. Much more fun can be had by just reading Benchley's work, or any of the other biographies.

We have many people alleging to be humorists these days butnobody who could ever compare with the delightful Robert Benchley.Previous books about him failed to capture the essence of the man, but in this enjoyable biography, Billy Altman brings Benchley into clear focus. Exhaustively researched, and drawing commentary from Benchley's diaries and personal letters, the reader gains insight into Benchley's love-hate attitude towards his (very successful) movie career. In an age when curmudgeons are accepted as humorists and sardonic late-night hosts pass as "wits," Bob Benchley's gentle humor is clearly missed and, we sadly realize, impossible to duplicate. Thanks to Billy Altman's loving portrait, Robert Benchley delights us again. --Edward Watz