A Biggie: Booth Tarkington

As The Treasury of Laughter Blog winds down – we’re down to less than a dozen writers, less than a hundred pages – we’re going to hit some big names. Big, powerful names. Names of the literary giants who have shaped an age, just like Moe and Homer.

Used under the fair use doctrine for commentary purposes.

Booth Tarkington is one of those names. Like John Updike and William Faulkner, Tarkington is a multiple winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (He won for “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and “Alice Adams,” both of which were made into movies).

That story, of course, is a seminal work in marking the transition of American culture from one that was primarily pastoral to one driven by growth, economy, and power – and brought us the famous old-money line: “Don’t you think being things is rather better than doing things?”

Tarkington, of course, was a doer. Not only did he win two Pulitzer prizes, he also served a term in the Indiana House of Representatives, illustrated many of his own books and many reprints of others’ books, including the 1933 reprint of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and earned two honorary degrees from Princeton.

His books turned to films brought out the doers as well, including Orson Welles, who filmed the Ambersons.

So stay tuned. We’ll read a bit of Tarkington’s “The Quiet Afternoon” in the next installment at The Treasury of Laughter.

Dorothy Parker: Oh Dear

During my university days, I saw a lot of drunken asses, from the guy who got tight and ended up naked and tied to the anchor in front of the neighboring fraternity to the guy who got tighter still and ended up talking animatedly to a small pair of pumpkins that ne brought home from the grocery store.

So to read Dorothy Parker’s “You Were perfectly Fine,” in which a drunken soul evidently confesses his undying love for a woman long pining for him held no surprises, not even his bottled chagrin at the end, when he realizes what he’s in for:

“And we’re going to be so happy,” she said. “Oh, I just want to tell everybody! But I don’t know – I think maybe it would be sweeter to keep it all to ourselves.”

“I think it would be,” he said.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she said.

“Yes,’ he said. “Great.”

“Lovely!” she said.

Of course, to cure what ails him, he asks for another drink, fitting in with what Homer Simpson says about beer:

Not that I’m advocating beer, or alcohol, given, during my university days, I also saw (and smelled) enough alcohol puke to firmly cement in my mind the idea that imbibing is not for me.

But enough about beer. How about Dorothy Parker? Wit, bon vivant, hater of all things Calvin Coolidge. In reading quite a bit of her stuff, I get the feeling that today she’s be a fairly successful Internet troll. A droll one, to be sure, but still out there doing what trolls do best.

Obviously, a writer one has to read more of to appreciate. And, I hope, this isn’t her funniest. Because if it is, well, that anchor’s looking pretty good.