Ring Lardner Tonight: The conclusion of "You Know Me Al" II -- Did you see this one coming?

I should probably have called attention sooner in our second You Know Me Al series to the remarkably perceptive appreciation of the "completeness" of Jack and the people around him offered by Virginia Woolf, which John Lardner quoted in the new introduction he wrote for You Know Me Al in 1958.


"I am the happyest man in the world Al."

-- from Jack's letter of October 14

by Ken

As we come finally to this topsy-turvy conclusion of the "Busher Comes Back" chapter of You Know Me Al, I have to own that I've been hard on Jack. But to know him is, well, to know him, and I've been reading on, not just through this chapter but farther into the book, and Jack is . . . well, so totally Jack, and so recognizable a combination of personal and personality types, that it's hard not to call him on his bullshit. It is, in fact, one of Ring's great accomplishments in these stories that he maintains both interest and surprise even as Jack's way of dealing with the world becomes so maddeningly familiar.

I know I've had the link in place all through the series, but perhaps I've been remiss in not directing attention to the introduction that Ring's oldest son, John, wrote for a new edition of You Know Me Al shortly before his own death in 1958. Now that we have the full picture of Jack's first major-league season under our belts, I hope it's not too late to recall just a bit of the quite fine appreciation of the busher stories which John quoted (in our Part 1) from no less than Virginia Woolf:

Mr. Lardner has talents of a remarkable order. With extraordinary ease and aptitude, with the quickest strokes, the surest touch, the sharpest insight, he lets Jack Keefe the baseball player cut out his own outline, fill in his own depths, until the figure of the foolish, boastful, innocent athlete lives before us. As he babbles out his mind on paper there rise up friends, sweethearts, the scenery, town, and country -- all surround him and make him up in his completeness.

FOR THE CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER II
OF YOU KNOW ME AL, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16
Part 8, Rain day in Philly; arrival in D.C. -- September 19 and 22
Part 9, In D.C., it's Jack vs. Johnson -- September 22 and 27
Part 10, The "city serious," and Jack's biggest news yet -- October 3 and 7
Part 11, Reversal(s) of fortune -- October 9 and 12

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

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