Word: thurberism
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Sometimes I Love You. Ambivalent is probably the word for Thurber. Although he believes he is essentially optimistic about the human species, he tends to nurse doubt when he rolls the subject around in his mind: "The human species is both horrible and wonderful. Occasionally, I get very mad at human beings, but there's nothing you can do about it. I like people and hate them at the same time. I wouldn't draw them in cartoons, if I didn't think they were horrible; and I wouldn't write about them, if I didn...
During wassail, Thurber's ambivalence can snap loose and he may be given to bursts of hooting & hollering. A New Yorker editor once returned to the office after a stormy evening at the Algonquin Hotel and thoughtfully announced, "Thurber is the greatest guy in the world up to 5 p.m." Those who love Thurber ascribe such outbursts to old-fashioned artistic temperament and simply shrug them off. They know that when real troubles arise, there is nobody more steadfast and generous. The jams he has helped and comforted friends through are without number...
...When The Thurber Album is completed, his next big effort will probably be another play. On Men, Women and Dogs, Thurber has a percentage-of-box-office deal with United Productions. If the picture is a success-and nearly everything Thurber touches creatively is successful-he will earn a great deal of money. For a man who has never once demeaned his talent for profit, nor ever aimed at mass appeal, he has already earned quite...
...more Thurber movies are made-and there is plenty of material to draw on-it is conceivable that the people and creatures of his imagination may one day be figures in international folklore. Already The Lancet, a learned British medical journal, has used the term "Walter Mitty syndrome" in referring to daydreaming on a grandiose scale...
...Although they would probably give the accolade for funniest, saddest and best single Thurber story to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty...