Perelman Tonight: The author's next phase plus Part 1 of "Acres and Pains"

"Of [Acres and Pains], critics have been gracious enough to say that it is irradiated by a tenderness, a nobility of vision that recall Ella Wheeler Wilcox at her most glutinous. Throughout its pages resound the cheep of the junco, the croak of bullfrogs, and the wail of the oppidan who has been taken to the cleaners."

-- from the Introduction to
Part II of The Most of S. J. Perelman

by Ken

The last two nights we've been easing into the word-wild world of funnyman S. J. Perelman (1904-1979), beginning Sunday night with the introduction he wrote to the first chronological section -- covering the years 1930-44 -- of the 1958 anthology The Most of S. J. Perelman and segue-ing into the first part of "Strictly from Hunger" and last night concluding "Strictly from Hunger."

There's less autobiographical meat to the Introduction to Part II of The Most, covering the years 1944-50, and I really wish we had some other Perelman under our belts before plunging into the chronicle of his life in the country, "Acres and Pains," but sometimes you just have to go with it. So tonight we have the Introduction to Part II of The Most of S. J. Perelman, segue-ing into the first chapter of "Acres and Pains."


FOR TONIGHT'S RATION OF PERELMAN, CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, JEAN SHEPHERD, and PERELMAN TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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