![]() The nine vignettes, covering fewer than 90 pages in my edition, amplify an age of innocence, not only the author’s but also the country’s. In it Thurber’s home town of Columbus, Ohio receives the most loving and gimlet-eyed treatment, where the cast of characters (mostly Thurber’s immediately family) are fondly and humorously drawn through the refracting lens of a decade or two. My Life and Hard Times is arguably the most concise and brilliant American memoir. ![]() ![]() ![]() I waited too long to rediscover him, not only as a humorist but as a serious and talented writer. My last brush with Thurber was back in prep school, where we mounted a play based on his short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, about his mock-heroic daydreams while accompanying his wife on shopping and beauty parlor forays in Waterbury, Connecticut. Not so with Thurber, who got in and out earlier. Ever since Tina Brown degraded the institution by politicizing it in the early 1990s, I have found most New Yorker writers either condescending or too precious by half. He also wrote for The New Yorker for many years. ![]() James Thurber was the major humorist – a term he derides as “loose-fitting and ugly” – of mid-20th century America. This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged ben batchelder columbus ohio humor james thurber reviews on by ben ![]()
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