Word: comic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...LAST JEW IN AMERICA, by Leslie Fiedler. In three comic novellas, a puckish critic-novelist plays conjuring treks with cards of racial identity. Fiedler's comedy is directed toward painful points of friction in U.S. life. He only laughs when it hurts...
...when he hoofed, sang and gagged around the circuits with the Marx Brothers and Eddie Cantor. Nowadays, however, he sticks mainly to monologue, or rather oratory. He likes to think of himself as the "Toastmaster General of the U.S." Since he is essentially a Jewish comic, he specializes in Israel-bond and similar fund-raising functions. He is equally proud of the fact that he spoke at inaugural parties for Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy...
...inevitable decision of choosing between Ian Fleming's rollicking escapism and John le Carre's gritty realism, Author Behn, a onetime off-Broadway producer who served for two years in the U.S. Army's counter-intelligence corps, cops out. The result is a pop horror comic about a mission to Moscow by a team of freelance operatives: a sadistic rapist, a dehumanized naval officer, a pimp, a homosexual, and a beautiful young girl who is not only an electronics genius but can tie knots in a string with her toes. The best thing about the book...
...seems, he would like his nickel back. It is a nice story, and Fiedler, who is on the editorial board of Ramparts, the San Francisco Catholic periodical, knows enough about the Jewish and Catholic faiths to understand that while neither is intrinsically funny, they may have their comic aspects when seen in social juxtaposition...
...American Negro writer has approached the comic posture that Chinua Achebe has achieved toward his own people. His book is worth a ton of documentary journalism. Indeed, he has shown that a mind that observes clearly but feels deeply enough to afford laughter may be more wise than all the politicians and journalists...