Thurber Tonight: Part 2 of "Lavender with a Difference" -- Mrs. Thurber Goes to Washington
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Young Mary Fisher Thurber
"The day after[her 80th-birthday party], a columnist in one of the Columbus papers recklessly described her as 'a bit of lavender and old lace.' She was indignant. 'Why, he doesn't even know about the time I threw those eggs!' she exclaimed. I didn't know about it, either, but I found out."
-- Thurber, in "Lavender with a Difference"
by Ken
In last night's first installment of "Lavender with a Difference," Thurber introduced us to his mother, Mary Fisher Thurber, a would-be thespian who, while raising three sons, channeled her theatricality into a lifetime of living theater.
In tonight's installment Thurber notes:
At one of [the Frioleras' (i.e., the social club his parents belonged to)] parties fifty years ago -- they played pedro and euchre in the winter and went on picnics and bicycle trips in the summer -- my father asked his wife, apropos of what prank I do not know, "How long do you expect to keep up this kind of thing, Mame?" She thought a moment and replied, "Why, until I'm eighty, I suppose.
TO READ PART 2 OF "LAVENDER
WITH A DIFFERENCE," CLICK HERE
THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY TONIGHT,
WILL CUPPY TONIGHT, and WOLCOTT GIBBS TONIGHT):
Check out the series to date
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Labels: James Thurber
posted by KenInNY @ 9:00 PM
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5 Comments:
On your recommendation, I bought a book of Thurber stories. I will say that they were good and well-written, and I even enjoyed some of them.
But I detected a strong undercurrent of something very unpleasant in Thurber's outlook on life. It's like the person with a fake smile who is really mean or hypercritical or patronizing inside.
I have no idea what he was like as a person, but this atmosphere or aura was noticeable in almost all the stories I read, and it really detracted from my enjoyment of them. I have more promising avenues to explore in life than to read more of this.
Interesting, me. These are all personal choices and responses, of course, so there's no right or wrong. I think Thurber's vision of life (hmm, and I'm not referring to his extremely poor literal vision, though that certainly colored his metaphorical "vision") was exceedingly dark, as is often the case with humorists (who, faced with the choice of laughing or crying at what they see, choose laughing), but I disagree strongly more about the fake smile or meanness or the rest.
I think Thurber had more and deeper compassion for the condition of mankind than most any writer I can think of. There's no getting around the fact, for example, that poor Walter Mitty is trapped, and there isn't much he can do about it. (Maybe once . . .)
Personally, Thurber wasn't at all an easy person to live with, especially as his vision deteriorated (it didn't help that he went through an endless series of operations that didn't accomplish anything), and the drinking got increasingly out of control. In terms of the drinking, that's why I found the portion of the 1938 letter to E. B. White I reprinted, in which he picks up Wolcott Gibbs's phrase "in our horrible bunch," so remarkable. ("I swear that all the laws of nature and of the constitution of man make it imperative not to live there [in New York City]. Not, at least, in our horrible bunch." Later he writes, "God knows it got me. I was the leader of those it got. This seems remarkable to me, now, from here. I can see that tall, wild-eyed son of a bitch, with hair in his eyes, and a glass in his hand, screaming and vilifying, and it's hard for me to recognize him.")
Thanks for sharing your experience. Different writers speak to different people. (And you can quote me.)
Cheers,
Ken
Oops, I was in such a hurry to get to the laundry room (stuff to pull out of the drier and other stuff to move from the washers to the drier -- very tricky operation) that I didn't include the link for the "our horrible bunch" letter. It's here.
Ken
Thanks for the response. I did find his writing interesting, and different. Perhaps with the downhill spiral that has occurred since and because of Gore's choice of Lieberman for veep, I feel more in need of cheering up than usual these days.
Maybe I'll give Thurber another try in a few years.
Well, I suppose Thurber cheers me up as well as -- no, probably better than (or I wouldn't be fobbing him off on valued readers) -- any other writer I know. I don't suppose I would trust him if his vision (oops, that word again) didn't reflect the darkness of our mortal coil, but then, these things are all entirely personal, aren't they?
Cheers,
Ken
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