Word: perelmans
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...Eine Kleine Mothmusik," a fascinating correspondence between Perelman and Mr. S. Merlin of Busy Bee Cleaners, Merlin writes that Perelman's maid "says you need a bulldozer, not a servant, and the pay is so small she can do better on relief." Throughout The Rising Gorge, Perelman allows himself this sort of knee-slapper somewhat more often than, as I remember, he did in his earlier pieces, and the result is an even more enjoyable brand of humor...
...Perelman pieces I always liked least were those in which he would take some real or imagined news release and construct an episode around it, to point out its utter absurdity, All too often the absurdity was quite evident at the outset, and the pieces were eminently predictable. Flailing dead turkeys as long as Perelman sometimes flails them gets to be pretty unfunny. Unfortunately, there are a few of these labored take-offs in The Rising Gorge...
...other hand, probably the best pieces in the book are the accounts of Perelman's travels, especially a seven-part series entitled "Dr. Perelman, I Presume, or Small Bore in Africa." The first piece, "This Is the Forest Primeval?" presents the meeting of Perelman, a cringing coward, with the bluff, devil-may-care British explorer group...
Spending the night in a tree house in Kenya, land of the Mau Mau, Perelman, as he so often seems to do, becomes alarmed...
...Perelman's misadventures, his total inability to cope with any given situation, and his slowly slipping grip on sanity make hilarious reading. He is at his best describing his own efforts to come to terms with the world around him, a world swarming with zany people and beyond rational control. And though he introduces many engaging and diverting personalities, his best creation is himself--the craven coward, the hesitant man of the world, the would-be lady killer, who really just wants to finish reading Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic...