Talk:S. J. Perelman
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aShouldn't the article be titled "S. J. Perelman" and the current title be a redirect? If I knew how to switch them, I would.
- I agree. "Sidney Joseph Perelman" is not a good title for the article. He was almost always refered to in print as "S. J. Perelman". I'll take care of switching them, and since you expressed a willingness to do something, how about helping take care of the articles in "what links here" to avoid the redirect? Cheers, -- Infrogmation 05:10, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I have loved Perelman for 40 years now and the idea that his writing resembles that of James Joyce and is stream of consciousness is the greatest nonsense I have ever read. It's like saying that Mickey Mantle perfected his swing by studying Ernest Hemingway. Whoever wrote it has obviously never read anything by Perelman (unless, of course, Perelman once wrote a parody of Joyce, which he may well have done). Having read hundreds of Perelman's carefully structured, meticulously composed shorts, I would say that possibly Perelman once said, as a satiric, height-of-absurdity, reponse to a particularly stupid interviewer, "Yes, I do indeed try to write like my idol, James Joyce." When I get over my indignation I'll rewrite this paragraph. Grrrrr!Hayford Peirce 03:28, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
[edit] the purported James Joyce connection
"Sid's delivery was much like his writing-- cutting, precise, sprinkled with Yiddishisms and jargon from a dozen professions. He was erudite and well read, especially in classic and contemporary fiction. He told us he had started out to be a novelist, another James Joyce, his hero ("the great comic writer of our time). It was from Joyce that he took his love of language--wordplay, metaphor, irony, parody, paradox, symbol, free association, the whole figurative arsenal. But when he failed early on to write an American Ulysses, he quit fiction for satire, starting first as a cartoonist (contributing one classic caption to cartoon lore: "I've got Bright's disease and he's got mine") and moving on to the sketch form (he liked to call these pieces feullitons)."
This is a far cry from saying that he wrote in "stream of consciousness" mode -- nothing could be further from the truth.Hayford Peirce 04:13, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it's possible to stray further from the truth than that (if that's even what I said), but no matter. I was surprised no one had written a good article yet, but didn't think I could. If I inspired you to do so, then I accomplished my purpose, though I would have preferred to have done it without annoying you. I appreciate your love of the subject.
- Well, I'm glad you liked the result -- I shouldn't have been so brusque with my original comments, I suppose. I was just so staggered to see the comparison with Joyce (whom I *hated* and found totally unreadable back in the years when I was devouring Perelman and, like Woody Allen, trying to write like him) that my eyes nearly fell out and I could hardly contain myself. Anyway, I doubt that I would have felt impelled to flesh out the article unless that comment had been there. As I said in the article, Perelman is a very difficult writer to characterise -- he's really very sui generis....
There was one characteristic thing he did that I wanted to put in the article but I couldn't find a concrete example of it. He would take a common word or phrase and change its meaning completely in the context of what he was writing. For instance: "Picking up the heavy garment and throwing it over my shoulders, I walked out in a huff." That's something I came up with in emulation of S.J. when I was about 15 -- I thought at the time that all of his skits had at least one example like this but now I'm unable to find any.... Best, Hayford Peirce 05:30, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm very sorry that I angered you. If it makes you think better of me, I hate Joyce as much as you do, but it was my understanding that Perelman's own opinion of Joyce differed from ours. That was why I used the word parody, implying you don't have to like one to like the other. Anyway, you said it better.
I have a copy of "The Most of S.J. Perelman" that I have owned for a quarter century. Lately I have found that most of my favorite lines are from "Westward Ha!" such as this one near the end: "The homeward-bound Americans were as merry as grigs (the Southern Railway had considerately furnished a box of grigs for purposes of comparison) ... " Richard K. Carson
You didn't anger me, just startled and baffled me. Anyway, I'm sorry if I over-reacted. It would make a nice Perelman skit, perhaps. I can't seem to find my copy of the "The Most of," all of my S.J. books are scattered around the house for some reason. In any case, that "grigs" thing is exactly the sort of Perelmanism that I was thinking of -- I'll stick it into the article at once. Thanks for the tip -- there are better ones, I think, but this will do for the moment.... Hayford Peirce 17:33, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have a copy of Alan Coren's moving, yet funny, obituary for Perelman from a 1979 issue of Punch. It is protected by copyright, so I can't upload it, but if anyone wants a copy, my email is matthews@cds.unina.it
I am a newcomer to Wikpedia, and there must be an easier way of doing this! User: Jeffmatt
Another newcomer. I have long thought that Perelman's style is modeled on that of Sax Roehmer. Has anyone ever tried that out? Papagec 04:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
