S J Perelman Pořadí knih (chronologicky)

Sidney Joseph Perelman, a uniquely original and humorous voice in American literature, crafted gags for the Marx Brothers, won an Oscar for screenwriting, and collaborated on five Broadway plays. His distinctive humor shines in the sketches and satires he wrote for The New Yorker and other publications, which editor Adam Gopnik describes as exploring "American vulgarity" in a shocking yet entertaining manner. This collection features parodies, social satires, autobiographical pieces, and selections from the "Cloudland Revisited" series, where Perelman reflects on his youthful encounters with books and movies and the surprises of revisiting them as an adult. In "Scenario," he presents a surreal Hollywood pitch meeting, blending clichés and slang into a continuous paragraph. "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer" humorously critiques Raymond Chandler's hardboiled detective fiction, while "No Starch in My Dhoti, S'il Vous Plaît" imagines a comical correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru's father and a Parisian launderer. The volume also includes Perelman's two-act comedy, The Beauty Part, a spoof on money and art that premiered in 1962. Rounding out the collection are profiles of the Marx Brothers, Dorothy Parker, and Nathanael West, along with letters to notable figures like Edmund Wilson and Groucho Marx.

Two rival businessmen meet in the Warsaw train station. "Where are you going?" says the first man."To Minsk," says the second."To Minsk, eh? What a nerve you have! I know you're telling me you're going to Minsk because you want me to think that you're really going to Pinsk. But it so happens that I know you really are going to Minsk. So why are you lying to me?"Four men are walking in the desert.The German says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have a beer."The Italian says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have wine."The Mexican says, "I'm tired and thirsty.I must have tequila."The Jew says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes."

This book includes many of the greatest hits from 1930 to 1958--available only in this edition--by the devastatingly witty Perelman, the leading figure of The New Yorker magazine's golden age of humor and one of the most popular American humorists ever. In these hilarious pieces, the charmingly cranky Perelman turns his scathing attention to books, movies, New York socialites, the newspaper business, country life, travel, Hollywood, the publishing industry, and, last but not least, himself. His self-portrait: "Under a forehead roughly comparable to . . . Piltdown Man are visible a pair of tiny pig eyes, lit up alternately by greed and concupiscence. . . . Before they made S. J. Perelman, they broke the mold." Sophisticated and supremely mischievous, Perelman is an acrobat of language who turns a phrase and then, before the reader has time to finish admiring his agility, turns it again.