Word: humorous
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...without losing its own character and strength. "Riverhead," a novel conceived as a novel, but conceived by a poet, who brings to prose, unconsciously perhaps, his lyric sensitiveness and intensity, is more than sufficient justification for this statement. it is a book that has elements of romanticism, realism, and humor, a combination as happy as it is rare in our time. it has a compact, simple, strong form; and a philosophic idea as its basis that ought to satisfy Mr. T. S. Eliot. On the other hand, avoiding the Joycian method of presenting every detail no matter how irrelevant...
Chief bugaboo of Adman Collins' life is dullness. "When I pick up a newspaper or look at a magazine." he says, "I find 95% of the copy is deadly serious, in fact downright dreary." Most advertising he finds even worse. Though alert copywriters should pounce merrily on "humor . . . and the human element in situations and merchandise," he warns that they must not be funny more than 5% of the time. He admits: "I do not think there is anything funny about a Baldwin locomotive." Chief tenet of Adman Collins' advertising creed is honesty. He deplores the blasts...
Maugham tells his eventful narrative sparely, almost drably, seldom allows even his mouthpiece Dr. Saunders such Maugham-like summations as: "Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humor and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence...
...arms of a velveteen breeched young man, later known to his friends as Sebastian Melmouth. To understand this remarkable young man one had to read the Yellow Book, live up to one's blue china, grow long hair, be super-aesthetical, think of lilies, and have a sense of humor; the last qualification is, of course, paradoxical. Now Gilbert and Sullivan refused to have anything except a sense of humor, and insisted on putting too-too together to get vanity. That is sufficient apologia for "Patience...
...greenness. His intimates say "he was born sophisticated." Within a few weeks he was roving the streets, a "space man." His first week on space netted him $72.58, princely for that day. Added to a good reporter's alertness to detail were O'Malley's Irish humor and sensitivity to pathos. Combined they made him a master of the human interest story. Also they enabled him to whip out columns of newspaper humor when news was thin. The Sun printed them at prodigious length...