Word: benchley
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Humphrey Bogart (Little, Brown; $12.50) is Nathaniel Benchley's "attempt to bring life to what is rapidly becoming a legend. The literal-minded," warns the author, "will complain that the quotes in this book cannot be accurate, and this is probably true." The problem is not one of accuracy but of familiarity. Benchley's frail chronicle offers the standard stories of Hollywood's old rebel, who pursued independence the way Sam Spade sought the Maltese falcon. Defining the difference between himself and most everybody else, Bogart used to claim that the world was about two drinks behind...
...sophistication and style-above all, style-mattered more than life itself. In one sense it was a constricted world; the old New Yorker never boasted more than 330,000 subscribers. In another sense, that world seemed to have no boundaries. It played host to Alexander Woollcott, Parker and Robert Benchley, and published the poems and short stories of almost every writer worth a second look. Such diversity should imply a 50-year-old scrapbook, an omnium-gatherum without standards or values. The literate world knows better. The very term "New Yorker piece" connotes scruple and concern...
...decidedly not. A seasoned New Yorker writer can make even New Yorker writers interesting. Besides, from the beginning, Ross's humor magazine attracted remarkable talents: Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, E.B. White, Wolcott Gibbs, S.J. Perelman, John O'Hara, Edmund Wilson, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, Saul Steinberg, George Price. The list can (and in Gill's telling does...
...Jaws, Benchley...
...Jaws, Benchley...