Word: thurbers
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...writer or his problems except another writer." Assuming that his readers had no interest in reading about his writers, Ross kept intramural gossip out of his magazine, and so has his successor William Shawn. Yet neither editor could stem the tide of moonlight memoirs by New Yorker staffers. James Thurber gave Ross himself a full-dress treatment in The Years with Ross (1959). Now, on the magazine's 50th birthday this week, comes Brendan Gill's account of his nearly 40 years with everybody at The New Yorker...
...what can be done with some talent and some money, if one knows how. He wants, in particular, to encourage "the young, who even in these easy going seventies hear far too much about what a serious matter life is." And certainly, his portraits of the times with Thurber and Ross, John O'Hara, Edmund Wilson, and so on, are pleasant evidence for his thesis. Some of his contemporaries may have had trouble learning the first rule of life--always to have a good time--but Gill, says Gill, was "one of the lucky ones with a knack...
That was how James Thurber described Bolenciecwcz, his quintessential dumb jock, in My Life and Hard Times. Though a caricature, Ohio State Tackle Bolenciecwcz was not entirely ludicrous. Sport and education, particularly higher education, have never been a common combination...
...James Thurber was particularly eloquent in his praise of these sterling qualities. In Thurber's Dogs, he recalled his poodle: "She could take part in your gaiety and your sorrow; she trembled to your uncertainties and lifted her head at your assurances." Big animals are particularly in demand as protectors...
...page report is full of historical context and even literary allusions--Tolstoy, Ford Madox Ford, Santayana and James Thurber all work their way into its pages--but its real meat remains the results of the questionnaires, which have been floating around the administration for several months...