The Thurber Carnival

This compendium will give a thoroughly entertaining taste of one of the twentieth century's greatest humourists. Thurber's imagination and wit have an appeal all their own.This anthology brings together a number of his short stories as well as selections from amongst his modern fables and cartoons. 'What Do You Mean, It Was Brillig?' and 'The Night the Bed Fell' are two excellent and hilarious tales that serve well as an introduction to Thurber's surreal world. Don't read these in public unless you are prepared to draw attention to yourself - they will have you laughing out loud. In his fables, modelled after Aesop, but with a twentieth-century bent, Thurber delights in catching the reader unaware with his own particular brand of irony.The cartoons are ingenious. Sometimes you will read a cartoon in a newspaper and it will make you laugh. Go back to it again and it no longer has the same effect. Thurber's cartoons, on the other hand, are so utterly inspired (I do not exaggerate), that they will improve upon a second and third look. You will discover subtle nuances you didn't perceive before. His funniest offerings draw on the theme of marriage, and frequently involve the chasm between a husband and wife trapped in a marriage out of which the love and romance has long since disappeared. You will be left baffled as to where exactly Thurber came across such a natural talent for finding (and exploiting) the absurd in everything.

I grew up with this book. First published in the mid-40s, it lived in the center of a built-in bookcase over my father's desk in the family room, and I was drawn to it time and time again during my childhood.At first, I was convulsed by Thurber's uniquely hilarious cartoons. His dogs and his women are priceless...drawn in a style that nobody has ever been able to duplicate or capture.It was only later, as I grew older, that I could appreciate Thurber's written humor. The "Thurber Carnival" (and it is) is a compilation of essays and excerpts from "My World--and Welcome to It," "The Middle Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze," and others. These were Thurber's earlier works that were very much a product of their times, but oh, so funny! Thurber was one of the great commentators on the vagaries of everyday life. Along with Robert Benchly et al., he set the tone for an entire generation. I still have this book, and I absolutely cherish it. It's hard to do Thurber justice in a review. All I can say is--buy this book and wallow in it. You'll be glad you did.

"The Thurber Carnival" was a beloved companion of my early youth; I laughed out loud again and again at the stories of "My Life and Hard Times," the hilarious "Fables for Our Time," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," and other classics. What was really important to me about Thurber was that he came from the same part of Ohio that I did, and actually had had relatives and attended family reunions in Sugar Grove, Ohio, where I grew up. That meant all the world to me, because it showed me that someone who had ties to Sugar Grove could be a famous writer. Now, I love Thurber's work more than ever; as an adult, I can better appreciate the nuances of a story like "The Catbird Seat." Thurber's work is a precise, funny, yet deeply serious portrait of an America which had just recently completed the transition from a frontier to an urban society. Women, having just won the right to vote, were flexing new-found muscles; men, divorced from the need to wrest a living from the soil, felt suddenly unmoored and emasculated; a new breed of self-help authors arose to make a quick buck from the newly uncertain populace; and oceans of alcohol fueled the newly stirred resentments between the sexes.Thurber recorded it all, in a prose style as elegant and lucid as any in the history of American literature. "The Catbird Seat," "Fables for Our Time" and the self-help parodies of "Let Your Mind Alone!" are every bit as fresh and pertinent as when Thurber wrote them 60-odd years ago. Unfortunately, some aspects of his work--most glaringly his portrayal of African-Americans--have not stood up so well. But one can only say of Thurber what the Duc de Saint-Simon said of Louis XIV: "His virtues were his own, his faults were his times'." The best of James Thurber ranks with the best of Mark Twain, Ring Lardner, Woody Allen and any other American humorist you can name.

A few years back I used to travel to work (some 15 miles) by bus. As is the custom with commuters just about everywhere, my fellow travellers and I seldom spoke..a nod and a half-smile would be about as much communication as we managed. One morning I unwisely picked up a copy of "The Thurber Carnival" to while away the time on the journey: unwise because about halfway through "Travels With Olympy" I let out such an unrestrained hoot of laughter that I startled myself and everyone else on the bus. For a moment it seemed that the driver was about to stop and come back to check on the commotion. Things got back to normal, however....but I couldn't help noticing a few puzzled looks in my direction when I found myself choking back the tears while reading about Thurber's dog Rex: I don't even like dogs much, but such is the punch of Thurber's writing that I was howling my eyes out over the demise of this pooch. As the passengers were getting off the bus one kindly lady stopped by my seat and asked what I had been reading. The next day I got it into my head to buy a bicycle and started cycling to work each day. I recall one morning as the bus hurtled past me, seeing the kindly lady reading a book and smiling...I can't be sure, but I like to think it was the Thurber Carnival. These days I drive to work.

One night my wife read to me from one of her textbooks, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". I had never heard of James Thurber up to that point. The next day, I bought this collection, mainly because it had Walter Mitty in it. I lucked out, the rest of the collection is incredible--especially the semi-autobiographical material. It's hard to chose favorites but I'll try. I loved "The Owl Who Was God", "The Dog That Bit People", "The Catbird Seat", "The Unicorn in the Garden", "The Car We Had to Push", and "Draftboard Nights". Considering the length of my favorites, I might as well have just copied the Table of Contents.That been said, Thurber is a fantastic writer, with great humor, and penetrating insight.