Ring Lardner
7 Bücher
- Fred Gross, Chicago police detective, builds a house in the suburbs and reports the whole ordeal in semi-literate letters. Lardner's malaprop American is the entire show, and it's a good one; short, dumb on the surface, sly underneath.
- Lardner writes the whole thing in this wiseguy Chicago slang, a husband narrating how his wife drags him to Palm Beach to crash high society, and the deadpan needling between them still lands. If you like humor that's dry, vernacular, and a little mean, this is a good afternoon.
- You’ll have a hard time not hearing Jack Keefe’s voice in your head as he writes to Al, confidently misunderstanding nearly everything around him. The baseball is real, but the pleasure comes from watching his vanity, loyalty, and shaky grasp of reality expose themselves in every letter.
- You’d enjoy June Moon for its brisk, slightly sour look at Tin Pan Alley, where Fred Stevens arrives with faith in his songs and runs into the machinery of professional success. The dialogue has Kaufman’s snap and Lardner’s sting, though its backstage world can feel dated and its warmth is carefully rationed.
- Lardner goes over as a war correspondent and mostly reports on his own uselessness, seasick on the crossing, baffled by French, never quite reaching the front. If you like deadpan American wisecracking more than actual war reporting, this is a light, oddball afternoon.
- Light verse from a famously good American ear, much of it a new father joking about his small son in Bib Ballads. Minor Lardner, cheerfully so; worth an evening just for the vernacular swing.
- Lardner writes idiots who tell on themselves without knowing it, like the barber in Haircut cheerfully recounting a story that gets darker with every sentence. If you like humor with a mean streak and pitch-perfect American slang, you'll grin and wince in equal measure.