People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber [Hardcover]

James Thurber (Author), Michael J. Rosen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

In this centennial volume of previously uncollected work, James Thurber continues to flourish. Here is the pleasure of recognizing this comic genius at work again, with his suspicious, civilized, unsettling wit. Included are eighteen prose pieces and over seventy-five drawings by the only cartoonist who could claim to draw "abstract things like despair, disillusion, despondency, sorrow, lapse of memory, exile . . . sometimes in a shape that might be called Man or Woman." Here are drawings with such contemporary smarts that they still sting, including dozens of reports from the front line in that cold war between the sexes. This is Thurber at his most entertaining, praising things canine in two marvelous tributes, musing over the promises of mail sweepstakes, confessing his aversion to anything mechanical, puzzling over the animal kingdom's curious uprisings, reconsidering the value of Byrd's claiming of the icy lands of Antarctica ("Are we landowners or ice dealers? Are we men or penguins?"), and observing the fate of sex. For good measure, Michael Rosen offers the recipe for Thurber's favorite birthday cake, the Never-Fail Devil's Food.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Thurber seems to have had more fun than most, and this is a thoroughly enjoyable menagerie of some of his congenially barbed cartoons and comic essays. The beauty of Thurber's writing lies in the way he applies a perfect parody of elevated, didactic prose in the service of decidedly unelevated subjects. Consider ``The Story of the Bicycle,'' which begins: ``Although the bicycle has not multiplied anywhere near as rapidly as the rabbit, it must be borne in mind that in the beginning there was only one bicycle whereas there were two rabbits.'' And expressing anxiety over all the ice the nation had come to possess after Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expedition, Thurber demands: ``Are we landowners or ice dealers? Are we men or penguins? Let us face these questions soberly.'' -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Thurber seems to have had more fun than most, and this is a thoroughly enjoyable menagerie of some of his congenially barbed cartoons and comic essays. The beauty of Thurber's writing lies in the way he applies a perfect parody of elevated, didactic prose in the service of decidedly unelevated subjects. Consider ``The Story of the Bicycle,'' which begins: ``Although the bicycle has not multiplied anywhere near as rapidly as the rabbit, it must be borne in mind that in the beginning there was only one bicycle whereas there were two rabbits.'' And expressing anxiety over all the ice the nation had come to possess after Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expedition, Thurber demands: ``Are we landowners or ice dealers? Are we men or penguins? Let us face these questions soberly.'' (Kirkus Reviews ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 169 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1st edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151000948
• ISBN-13: 978-0151000944
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dated but Amusing Collection of Previously Uncollected Stuff, November 17, 2001

By 

Dr. Christopher Coleman (HONG KONG) - See all my reviews

This review is from: People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration Of Drawings And Writings By James Thurber (Paperback)

People Have More Fun Than Anybody collects 19 of Thurber's stories/articles/letters, several cartoons, and one recipe that have been previously uncollected. Surely this is a classification that would have amused Thurber no end--are they now "non-uncollected" stories? In "Help! Help! Another Classificationization" Thurber sets himself against exactly this mindset. And frankly, at this late date in the late humorist's career, such a criteria for inclusion assures that the book will not bring us the best of his work.

However, Thurber is almost always witty, and even though some of the pieces are dated and irrelevant, all of the writings evoke at least a smile. The cartoons don't fare as well, some of them being merely puzzling. The end notes tell us that some cartoons had different captions in their original stages. The most wildly different is a picture of a woman leaning forward and speaking intently to a man. The published caption is "If I told you a dream I had about you, Mr. Price, would you promise not to do anyting about it unless you really want to?", but the earlier caption on Thurber's original drawing was "If they never found the husband's body could they do anything to the wife?"

This is essentially a collection for the die-hard Thurber fan (who are rather few on the ground these days, it seems) only. Others will probably do better to read The Thurber Carnival.