The Thurber Carnival
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Beschreibung
This collection brings together the best of James Thurber's brilliantly funny, eccentric and anarchic writings. It includes his most famous work, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which an ordinary man's fantasies have a more powerful hold on him than reality, as well as essays, poetry and cartoons gathered from all of Thurber's collections. Making fun of his own weaknesses and those of other people (and dogs) - the English teacher who looked only at figures of speech, the Airedale who refused to include him in the family, the botany lecturer who despaired of him totally - James Thurber is a true original, whose off-beat imagination shows us everyday life from a different angle.
James Thurber was born in 1894 at Columbus, Ohio, where, as he once said, so many awful things happened to him. After university (Ohio State) he worked at the American Embassy in Paris from 1918 to 1920, and then turned to journalism. From 1927 onwards he was on the staff of the New Yorker, and first published much of his work in it. He died in New York in 1961, and is today recognised as one of America's greatest twentieth-century humourists.
'One of the absolutely essential books of our time' Saturday Review of Literature
'One of the great humorists' Sunday Times
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Beiträge
I read (or rather listened to) this having already seen the Ben Stiller movie, so a comparison was unavoidable. And – what can I say – the story is much better. The movie took the story and made it into a clichéd pseudo-philosophic Hollywood fest. And even though I did enjoy the scenery and the way the movie dealt with the main character’s fantasy episodes, I thought the movie was shallow and rather naïve. The original short story gets along without the obligatory and unrealistic love interest, but depicts Walter as a very sad and unsatisfied person, who comes to life and achieves meaning and happiness only in his varied daydreams. What I hated most about the movie was the saccharine and naïve ending, where Walter leaves all his fears – and pretty much his personality – behind and becomes this brave and life-affirming person who can literally climb every mountain, find the man that no one can find and – of course – get the girl. The rather bleak ending of the short story where Walter can only escape his seemingly meaningless life and his constantly nagging wife by imagining himself being executed by a firing squad definitely sends a different message and I can understand that that would not have resonated well with the average movie audience. But to me it made a lot more sense and it kept the tone of the story as a whole.
Beschreibung
This collection brings together the best of James Thurber's brilliantly funny, eccentric and anarchic writings. It includes his most famous work, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which an ordinary man's fantasies have a more powerful hold on him than reality, as well as essays, poetry and cartoons gathered from all of Thurber's collections. Making fun of his own weaknesses and those of other people (and dogs) - the English teacher who looked only at figures of speech, the Airedale who refused to include him in the family, the botany lecturer who despaired of him totally - James Thurber is a true original, whose off-beat imagination shows us everyday life from a different angle.
James Thurber was born in 1894 at Columbus, Ohio, where, as he once said, so many awful things happened to him. After university (Ohio State) he worked at the American Embassy in Paris from 1918 to 1920, and then turned to journalism. From 1927 onwards he was on the staff of the New Yorker, and first published much of his work in it. He died in New York in 1961, and is today recognised as one of America's greatest twentieth-century humourists.
'One of the absolutely essential books of our time' Saturday Review of Literature
'One of the great humorists' Sunday Times
Buchinformationen
Beiträge
I read (or rather listened to) this having already seen the Ben Stiller movie, so a comparison was unavoidable. And – what can I say – the story is much better. The movie took the story and made it into a clichéd pseudo-philosophic Hollywood fest. And even though I did enjoy the scenery and the way the movie dealt with the main character’s fantasy episodes, I thought the movie was shallow and rather naïve. The original short story gets along without the obligatory and unrealistic love interest, but depicts Walter as a very sad and unsatisfied person, who comes to life and achieves meaning and happiness only in his varied daydreams. What I hated most about the movie was the saccharine and naïve ending, where Walter leaves all his fears – and pretty much his personality – behind and becomes this brave and life-affirming person who can literally climb every mountain, find the man that no one can find and – of course – get the girl. The rather bleak ending of the short story where Walter can only escape his seemingly meaningless life and his constantly nagging wife by imagining himself being executed by a firing squad definitely sends a different message and I can understand that that would not have resonated well with the average movie audience. But to me it made a lot more sense and it kept the tone of the story as a whole.