How to Attract the Wombat

How to Attract the Wombat

by Will Cuppy

Blurb:

A survey of the animal kingdom in which the nocturnal and tunneling wombat is awarded the greatest praise.

Will Cuppy was something like the Larry David of the mid-20th century. From his perch as a staff writer at The New Yorker , Cuppy observed the world and found a great deal that annoyed him. This collection of essays on animals includes “Birds Who Can’t Even Fly,” “Optional Insects,” “Octopuses and Those Things”, and “How to Swat a Fly,” which codifies the essentials in ten hilarious principles. And three essays on wombats. Perfect reading for the perplexed, befuddled, and perpetually irritated.

My Reaction:

I found these humorous essays better than Cuppy's book about historical figures (The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody)—but less enjoyable than How to Be a Hermit.  Good for light reading, especially if you want something that can mostly be consumed in short bites.  

If you're the type who reads P.G. Wodehouse, I'd give this author a try.  

Of All Things!

Of All Things!

by Robert Benchley

(Cobbled Together) Blurb:

This is a collection of humorous essays by Robert Benchley, an American humorist who worked as a columnist and film actor. Best known for his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry.

My Reaction:

I don't believe I had ever heard of Robert Benchley before reading this, though I've since learned more about him (such as that he's the grandfather of the author of Jaws) and watched one of his short films (How to Sleep, which is available for free on YouTube).  I think I saw his name on a list of authors to read if you like P.G. Wodehouse, so Donald and I gave this freebie a try between other books. 

It's been months since we finished it, but I think my impression was that it was amusing in spots, but that it felt more dated and less funny than Cuppy's How to Be a Hermit.  Cuppy's book is the more recent of the two—published in 1929, while these essays by Benchley were published in 1921—but the choice of subject matter make the more recent one feel fresher and more relevant (to me) than a mere eight years' difference should make.  

For example, one of these essays relates the process of college football fans gathering to listen to the progress of a game being played at a distant stadium.  But because this was before radio broadcasts of sporting events, the events of the game were communicated via telegraph, with an announcer relaying the play-by-play.  There's a great deal of confusion and mistakes, and the whole thing feels bizarre and far-removed from the modern experience.  (Some of the essays are less severely dated than this, but this one stands out in my memory more than most of the others.)

Anyway, it's been too long since reading it for me to make many more comments.  I'd consider reading more of the author's work. 

How to Be a Hermit, or a Bachelor Keeps House

How to Be a Hermit, or a Bachelor Keeps House

by Will Cuppy

Blurb:

Humorous memoir by a socially-challenged book reviewer living alone in a shack on an island off Long Island, New York, in the 1920s.

My Reaction:
I had never heard of Will Cuppy until we found him on a list somewhere, recommended to fans of P.G. Wodehouse.  We started with The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone, which we thought was funny in parts, but could have been better.  (You really need to know more ancient history than either of us do to get a lot of the jokes.)  

I believe it was in the afterward for The Decline and Fall that we read that Wodehouse himself was a fan of Cuppy—specifically, that he read How to Be a Hermit multiple times a year!  I don't know if that's true, but it was a good enough reason to try it ourselves, and I'm glad we did.  I found this book much the more entertaining of the two, and while I won't make an annual tradition of reading it, I certainly wouldn't mind returning to it at some point.  

If you're a fan of Wodehouse, I do think you might enjoy this—if what you love about Wodehouse is his ability to turn an amusing phrase.  If intricate plotting is what you're after, then no, you won't like How to Be a Hermit.  It really has no plot.  It's just a loosely linked collection of essays about his life as a "hermit" in the 1920s.  The majority of the essays relate to food in some way, or that's how it seemed to us as we read our way through them.  

I always find it amazing how much the same the human experience remains across time.  Admittedly, the 1920s aren't ancient history, but 1929 (when this was published) is nearly a century in the rearview mirror!  So many of the things he wrote about here had me nodding along in agreement.  There might be some differences (his medical book compared to our "Dr. Google"), but the results are the same (anxiety and convincing yourself that your minor complaint is a symptom of any of a dozen serious diseases).  

Because we'd already read a brief outline of Cuppy's life, certain elements of the book took on a darker, more melancholy tone that they otherwise would have had, thanks to an awareness of what lay in his future—but putting that to the side, this was a fun read.  I'll be interested to try more of his work!

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody: Great Figures of History Hilariously Humbled 

by Will Cuppy

Blurb:

Ever wonder what Nero did before he began fiddling about in Rome, or wanted the bare facts about Lady Godiva? Maybe you've found the story of Lucrezia Borgia a bitter pill to swallow, or wanted the straight skinny on corpulent King Henry the Eighth, but you haven't the stomach for stuffy history books. Now these and twenty-two more of history's most famous personages are brought brilliantly to life, in this collection of unfailingly accurate yet undeniably hilarious biographies. You'll laugh while you learn about the very real people behind the legendary names, including why Montezuma was so vengeful, and why Catherine was so Great. You'll even finally lay to rest the rumor that Charlemagne was called "Chuck" by his friends.

My Reaction:

Donald and I read this one together to fill in the gaps between 372-Pages books.  I think one of us found it recommended on a list of "if you like this, try that" books/authors.  It's been a while since we read this (because I've fallen out of the habit of updating this blog in a timely fashion), but from what I recall, we thought it was amusing in parts, but also maybe a bit less funny than it could have been if we were in on more of the jokes.  I guess we just aren't big enough history buffs to get some of the references.  Anyway, it was something different to try, and we're now reading something else of Cuppy's and enjoying it more than this—so if this doesn't quite hit the mark with you, either, some of his other work might be more to your taste.  

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

I found this collection of autobiographical essays to be a little bit hit-or-miss.  Generally, there would be at least one or two funny moments per essay, but there would also usually also be one or two things that I felt could just as well have been left out.  If something's not funny and doesn't contribute much to the anecdote at hand, be ruthless and rip it right off the page.  (I guess the problem is that the author and editor(s) thought those boring, troubling, and/or irrelevant bits were funny or somehow important.  Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.  As they say.)

I selected this as read-aloud (with Donald) material, not realizing that it would contain quite so much cursing as it does.  Considering that I'm simply not comfortable cursing very heartily (especially "in cold blood"), this led to a lot of bleeping during the reading.  In most of the essays, there are only a few bleeps-- and then there was the essay about the author's brother, who calls himself "the Rooster"...

All in all, this book wasn't the sort I'd recommend without reservations to just anyone, but I can't deny that some of it made us laugh, so I'm willing to try another book of essays by Sedaris-- particularly since the reviews I've read indicate that this may not have been his very best work.  

Note:  I'm labeling this as non-fiction, though there seems to have been some embroidering in spots (based on reviews).  I'm assuming there's enough basis in fact to make the "non-fiction" label apt.  It certainly doesn't feel like a cohesive work of fiction or a collection of short stories, so non-fiction it is!