About four years ago I ordered the paperback edition of Christmas at The New Yorker: Stories, Poems, Humor, and Art. It arrived, and I put it somewhere to be read during the Christmas season. I found it the next January and again put it somewhere to be read during the Christmas season. The pattern repeated itself two more times. Then this past January when once again I found the book, I was no longer willing to illustrate Benjamin Franklin's definition of insanity. I put Christmas at The New Yorker in the middle of the shelf of unreads, and for the past two days I've celebrated Christmas in July.
The book was pretty good. Most of the stories were interesting, and any book that has cartoons and pictures by Charles Addams could never disappoint. Highlights:
1) In a 1960's takeoff of O'Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," the girl takes one look at the crew cut of her hippie boyfriend and "stared as if he were something she had discarded in Scarsdale." (page 41) How perfect, IMHO. Weren't hippies always discarding remnants of Scarsdale, Shaker Heights, Bethesda or Pasadena?
2) In "Crèche" by a Richard Ford—a writer whom I'll be checking out later—there's a wonderful exchange as an uncle irritates a niece. "'It's a town in Michigan where they make fences,' Roger says. 'Fencing, Michigan. It's near Lancing.'" (page 163) Big smile. It amused me.
3) Same story. "Both girls have now become sleepy. There has been too much excitement, or else not enough. Their mother is in rehab. Their dad is an [censored]. They're in Michigan. Who wouldn't be sleepy?" (page 170) Yep. Gonna be checking out that Richard Ford.
4) And at the top of the same page (170), there's a Charles Addams' cartoon where a little girl is playing with a dollhouse under the Christmas tree. Right beside the dollhouse is a smoldering stack of leaves (pieces of paper) and right around the corner is the little brother, driving a toy fire truck, a fiendish smile on his face. I could have stayed on that page forever.
5) Another cartoon (page 214), not Addams but it could have been. Santa and a reindeer are dancing. Caption: "No, this is crazy. We mustn't."
6) Finally, a philosophical note in a story by John Updike—not one of my favorite writers but he sure nails something here. "Strange people look ugly only for a while, until you fill in those tufty monkey features with a little history and stop seeing their faces and start seeing their lives." (page 221) I've certainly found that to be true.
So, I recommend Christmas at The New Yorker. IMHO, it's worth reading at any time of year.
Grammar question: Christmas at The New Yorker seems logically correct to me because something that should be in italics in an already italicized phrase loses the italics—but Christmas at The New Yorker looks better. Anyone know which it should be?
Last edited by humphreysmar; 07/15/09 04:03 PM.
