Review
Samuel Hynes author of "Flights of Passage, The Growing Seasons, The Auden Generation," and other major works of literary criticism For readers who believe, as I do, that James Thurber is a permanently important American writer, the publication of "The Thurber Letters" is a major event. The sublime humorist everybody knows is richly here, but so are all the other Thurbers: the social satirist, the sour misogynist, our man at "The New Yorker," the whimsical writer of children's stories, the historian of American trivia, the lover, the father, the friend, the enemy. A big book, as it should be, and a great read all the way.
Product Description
The books that Thurber wrote - with titles such as "My World and Welcome To It", "The Beast in Me and Other Animals", "My Life and Hard Times" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" - were not only works of humour, but also offered glimpses into the author's own life. As with most humorists though, Thurber employed exaggeration and good-natured self-deprecation, and so what glimpses of the writer's life we get are no more than distorted peeks into his mind and psyche. Rather it is in his letters that Thurber offered some candid glimpses into who he really was, and why the prisms through which he viewed the world were so distorting. Thurber's letters trace his progress from immature, lovesick college boy to his last days battling illness. His interesting and comic comments in his personal letters on all these events contribute to an entertaining, informal form of autobiography.
