Fierce Pajamas: Selections of Humor from an Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker Review
Reading this anthology from cover to cover wouldn't be recommended. Think of this book as a newspaper; pick the headlines and titles that engage you and go from there. You'll be surprised at what you find. Some of the reviewers here are saying the pieces aren't laugh out loud; I think there's just a certain brand of humor the New Yorker tends to eminate. If you're into light or witty pieces, or if you'd just like a different kind of comedy, try this book.
I particularly enjoy Bruce McCall's pieces. "In the New Canada, Living is a Way of Life," he sarcastically marvels at the way Canadians deal with only one living room, one swimming pool, and are somehow able to answer his request for the time in perfect English.
Andy Borowitz's "Emily Dickinson, Jerk of Amherst" is a hilarious insight into a young man's (obviously fictional) relationship with the literary Belle. "Who, then, was the real Emily Dickinson? Daughter of New England in chaste service to her poetry, or back-stabbing gorgon who doctored your bowling score when you went to get more nachos?"
A wonderful collection of great short stories.
Fierce Pajamas: Selections of Humor from an Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker Overview
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A cornucopia of literary humor from the magazine that has defined the category for almost a century.
When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a "comic weekly." And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its heart to the founder's description, publishing virtually every accomplished practitioner of literary laughter of the modern era: James Thurber, S.J. Perelman, George W.S. Trow, Veronica Geng, Ian Frazier, Garrison Keillor, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Susan Orlean, Calvin Trillin, Marshall Brickman, Frank Sullivan and Wendy Wasserstein. This collection will gather together, for the first time, many of these great writers' greatest work. It will include not only the straight parodies and spoofs for which The New Yorker has become the talk of many towns, it will also contain humorous full-blown short stories, hilarious landmark reviews, and reporting as funny as it is informative. A wonderful gift for others, or a delightful present for oneself, Fierce Pajamas will present the best examples of literary laughter in all its variations from a publication that for decades has defined America's meatiest and most sophisticated sense of humor.
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Customer Reviews
Cheap Binding, Bad Editing - D. P. Reed - Cliffside Park, N.J.
It has been very odd, writing this up. With the exception of Andy Borowitz & Larry Doyle, for years now, TNY has published very little that has been described - awkwardly & sophomorically by Remnick & Finder - as "humor writing."
Think about this ham-handed description, "humor writing."
To prevent the event of a noun being used to modify a noun, shouldn't it be changed to "humorous writing," with an adjective modifying a noun? Why even go through all of this? Why not just write, "An Anthology of Humor, Satire, & Verse"?
If an editing detail that simple can be screwed up - & then printed on the TITLE PAGE! - what's inside the covers? What's next?
The interminable, trying-to-be-funny introduction is unsigned (Unfunny Witness Protection Program). And soon, another amazing editing blunder is obvious - placing the date (well, at least the year) that the item was published at the end of the story - instead of, logically, as part of the title.
Comedy - the dirty little word that has frightened decades of TNY editors, wanting to be regarded as Serious Journalists, All - is absolutely dependent upon its historical context.
There's a piece in the book, published in the 1950s, that spoofs the U.S.-Soviet cold war by factiously tracking how the Soviets have now attained the upper hand by producing four-pound novels (bigger missiles, get it?). How funny would this be in 1998? Why does the reader have to GUESS what year in which it was written (as one reviewer has noted), or go through the fruit loops of first reading the title, then going to the last page to discover the year in which the piece was written, & then returning to the first page?
On to the contents, we go.
TNY's intent appears to have been to print EVERYTHING in the archives. And thanks to this nitwit enthusiasm, the binding of this cheaply produced, 480-page hardcover weightlifting device, shortly after being purchased...burst.
I didn't resent it when this happened to my copy of Steve Suskin's "Opening Night On Broadway." Suskin's honorable intent was to bring us the opening night critical reviews of the entire golden era of Broadway musicals, almost all of which makes for very entertaining, "humorous writing." I knew that this was a rare instance of the binding having disintegrated because of the inclusion of too much excellent commentary.
I can't say the same for FP, whose now-herniated first selection is Wolcott Gibb's painfully unamusing "Death in the Rumble Seat." E.B. White's "Dusk in Fierce Pajamas," hot on the heels of Gibbs, failed to inspire - which compounds the inanity of having selected "Fierce Pajamas" as the book's title (& while we're at it, using a truly mediocre Steinberg illustration for the dust cover ranks right up there with the book's cardinal failings).
A few more entries like "The Analytic Napkin" (Marshall Brickman, perhaps the inspiration for the NBA slang, "throwing up bricks") & Bruce Friedman's tedious "Let's Hear It For A Beautiful Guy" (let's not), & the eyes glaze over.
[More hilarity ensued from The Bricks with his recent co-authorship of the book of..."Imagine, if you dare, the agonies of the talented [actors] trapped inside the collapsing tomb called `The Addams Family.' Being in this genuinely ghastly musical...must feel like going to a Halloween party in a strait-jacket or a suit of armor. Sure, you make a flashy (if obvious) first impression. But then you're stuck in the darn thing for the rest of the night, and it's really, really uncomfortable" (Brantley NYT 04/09/10). A "Rick Elise" was the other co-tormenter of the opening-night audience, the members of which - had they elected to tough it out - were trapped in their seats for two and a half hours!]
If you skip the above, you can still go three-&-out with the tiresome "We Are Still Married" (Garrison Keillor), or - my candidate for "Ultra-Worst" - Roger Angell's "In The Dough."
Tired of gradual disillusionment? If you really want to be immediately & terminally revolted by what someone considers to be "humor," proceed directly to the definitively obscene & ho-ho-ho hilarious theme of "incest-as-comedy" inherent in Ian Frazier's "Dating Your Mom" (I kid you not).
Roughly, twenty-five of the one hundred & fifteen pieces are genuinely funny (not coincidently, their authors weren't straining to achieve success). With the binding of this expensive hard cover book having disintegrated almost immediately after purchase, the day came when it was time to salvage them (for eventual reproduction & rebinding).
The publisher's decision to produce the book as cheaply as possible again became obvious when I started pulling the binding apart. Cotton candy would have put up a stiffer resistance. (Think about this if you happen to notice if TNY editors in their current issues start harping about the shoddy workmanship of the Toyoda brake assembly lines.)
I could go on for another 478 pages because everything that I've ever written, regardless of merit, deserves to be published. But I'll wrap it up by thanking my fellow reviewer who has pointed out, "Each of the authors has written much funnier stuff."
For example, it is inconceivable that E.B. White's inferior "Fierce Pajamas" could have been selected in lieu of his classic, hilarious Letter From The East, "The Eye of Edna" (1954; please note that the year of publication is not located at the end of this review).
And actual creative thought would have led to the inspiration of including the famous, unpublished, private letter written on November 23, 1936 by TNY editor Harold Ross & addressed to the cantankerous publisher of Time magazine, Henry Luce. Ross's droll rebuttals to Luce's livid accusations would have been funnier than all but perhaps three or four of the items in FP (see "Letters From The Editor," p. 108; Thomas Kunkel, The Modern Library, 2000).
All in all, the co-editors - who have proven that they jointly possess the notoriously infamous tin ear of Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., when it comes to the appreciation of wit & satire - had no business getting involved in a subject about which their ignorance is a profound embarrassment, to those of us who appreciate the writers who can make us forget our troubles, and laugh.
A collection from the summit of dry wit - Andrew C Wheeler - Pompton Lakes, NJ United States
It's difficult to review humor in the first place, since it's so subjective, and it's equally difficult to talk about an anthology -- so this book, with 139 pieces by dozens of contributors, makes me throw my hands up. It's got fine work from all of the people you would expect -- from E.B. White and Dorothy Parker to S.J. Perelman and Robert Benchley, from Woody Allen and James Thurber to Ian Frazier and Calvin Trillin -- divided into a handful of archly-titled categories, like "The Writing Life" and "The Frenzy of Renown." It's definitely not a book to read straight through, but it is a vital book for anyone interested in the strain of literate, elite humor that The New Yorker embodied in the 20th century.
Funny, but not the kind of funny involving humor, hmm? - Automatt - California, United States
I was expecting this collection to be as funny and engaging as Nobody's Perfect. While the collection does have some highlights, notably Woody Allen and Steve Martin, a good bit of the book is more enjoyable as a historical observation on highbrow humor throughout the great magazine's long run. One of the fun parts about the book is trying to figure out when each piece was written, as you're reading it. That's one of the FUN parts. Hoo Hoo Hoo.
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