Writings / S. J. Perelman ; Adam Gopnik, editor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Perelman, S. J. (Sidney Joseph), 1904-1979, author.

Contributor:

Gopnik, Adam, editor.

Series:

Library of America ; 346.

The Library of America series ; 346

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Perelman, S. J. (Sidney Joseph), 1904-1979--Correspondence.

Perelman, S. J.

Perelman, S. J. (Sidney Joseph), 1904-1979--Drama.

Perelman, S. J. (Sidney Joseph), 1904-1979.

American wit and humor.

Short stories, American.

Humorists, American.

Comedy.

Satire.

American drama--20th century.

American drama.

American drama--History and criticism.

Humorists, American--20th century--Correspondence.

Youth--Drama.

Youth.

Genre:

Short stories, American.

Satire.

Drama.

Comedy plays.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Humor.

Humorous fiction.

Personal correspondence.

Short stories.

Correspondence.

Physical Description:

xxi, 583 pages ; 21 cm.

Distribution:

United States : Penguin Random House Inc., [2021]

Place of Publication:

New York : Library of America, [2021]

Summary:

"One of the most original stylists in American literature--and one of the funniest--Sidney Joseph Perelman wrote gags for the Marx Brothers, won an Oscar for screenwriting, and wrote or collaborated on five Broadway plays. But nowhere is his zany and pyrotechnic humor more hilariously on display than in the one-of-a-kind sketches and satires (Perelman called them feuilletons) he wrote for The New Yorker and other magazines. Their "great subject is singular and simply defined," writes editor Adam Gopnik in his introduction to this volume: "American vulgarity, flowing up and down like waves of electricity through a cat in a cartoon, exposing its innards even as it shocks our sensibilities. Gopnik presents here the best of them--parodies, social satires, autobiographical pieces, and a selection from the celebrated "Cloudland Revisited" series, in which Perelman reminisces about books and movies encountered in youth and describes the rude shock of revisiting them as an adult. In the ear ly, Joycean piece called "Scenario," Perelman offers a surrealistic take on a Hollywood pitch meeting--a collage of on- and off-screen clichés, show biz argot, and popular slang that rolls on in one continuous paragraph. In "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer," he sends up the hardboiled detective fiction of Raymond Chandler: "I kicked open the bottom drawer of her desk, let two inches of rye trickle down my craw, kissed Birdie square on her lush, red mouth, and set fire to a cigarette." "No Starch in My Dhoti, S'il Vous Plaît" imagines an exchange of letters between Jawaharlal Nehru's increasingly irate father and a snooty Parisian launderer over a pair of damaged drawers. Also included in this volume is Perelman's most sustained piece of writing, his two-act comedy, The Beauty Part, which opened on December 26, 1962, at New York's Music Box Theatre and closed shortly afterward, the casualty of an unfortunately timed newspaper strike. The idea for this outrageous spoof about money, art and the ubiquitous desire for self-expression, Perelman was fond of saying, came to him one day when he was riding the elevator of Manhattan's Sutton Hotel: the operator stopped the car between floors and announced, "I'm having trouble with my second act." Rounding out the volume are profiles of the Marx Brothers, Dorothy Parker, and his brother-in-law Nathanael West from the unfinished autobiography, "The Hindsight Saga," and a selection of letters written to correspondents such as Edmund Wilson, Groucho Marx, and Paul Theroux." Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction: Perelman, the Pearl of Providence / by Adam Gopnik

Sketches and Satires. Puppets of passion: a throbbing story of youth's hot revolt against the conventions

Those charming people: the latest report on the Weinbloom reptile expedition

Scenario

Strictly from hunger

The love decoy: a story of youth in college today-awake, fearless, unashamed

Waiting for Santy: a Christmas playlet

Frou-frou, or the future of vertigo

Captain future, block that kick!

Midwinter facial trends

Counter-revolution

Beat me, post-impressionist Daddy

A pox on you, mine goodly host

Bend down, sister

Beauty and the bee

Button, button, who's got the blend?

Swing out, sweet chariot

A couple of quick ones: two portraits

Hell in the Gabardines

Farewell, my lovely appetizer

Hit him again, he's sober

Physician, steel thyself

Take two parts sand, one part girl, and stir

Sleepy-time extra Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, enough!

Send no money, honey

Acres and pains: chapter one

Acres and pains: chapter twelve

Don't bring me Oscars (when it's shoesies that I need)

Rancors aweigh

Mama don't want no rice

Columbia, the crumb of the ocean

Whenas in sulks my Julia goes

Cloudland revisited: why, doctor, what big green eyes you have!

Chewies the goat but flicks need hypo

Salesman, spare that psyche

The song is endless, but the malady lingers on

A girl and a boy anthropoid were dancing

Cloudland revisited: rock-a-bye, viscount, in the treetop

Cloudland revisited: when to the sessions of sweet silent films

No starch in the Dhoti, Sʹil vous plaît

Cloudland revisited: the wickedest woman in Larchmont

Swindle sheet with blueblood engrailed, arrant fibs rampant

Cloudland revisited: I'm sorry I made me cry

Sorry-no phone or mail orders^^^rl, and stir

Sleepy-time extra Next week at the Prado: Frankie Goya plus monster cast

You're my everything, plus city sales tax

Eline Kleine Mothmusik

Where do you work-a, John?

Portrait of the artist as a young mime

This is the forest primeval

Impresario on the Lam

Revulsion in the desert

Are you decent, Memsahib?

Tell me clear, parachutist dear, are you man or mouse?

Sex and the single boy

A soft answer turneth away royalties

Hello, central, give me that jolly old pelf

The sweet chick gone

Nobody knows the rubble I've seen/nobody knows but croesus

Three loves had I, in assorted flavors

Be a cat's-paw! Lose big money!

Moonstruck at sunset.

The beauty part: a comedy in two acts

The hindsight saga: three fragments from an autobiography. The Marx Brothers

Nathanael West

Dorothy Parker

Selected letters. To Edmund Wilson (September 2, 1929)

To I.J. Kapstein (October 9, 1930)

To Groucho Marx (April 7, 1943)

To Frances and Albert Hackett (August 14, 1949)

To Abby Perelman (April 15, 1954)

To Leila Hadley (August 21, 1955)

To Leila Hadley (September 16, 1955)

To Betsy Drake (September 28, 1955)

To Leila Hadley (August 25, 1956)

To Leila Hadley (November 22, 1956)

To Paul Theroux (October 18, 1976)

To Paul Theroux (December 24, 1976).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781598536928

1598536923

OCLC:

1264677570