#JamesThurber125
Today December 8 2019 is 125th birth anniversary of James Thurber
Following is the exchange between great James Thurber and Paris Review for the latter's issue dated Fall 1955:
JT: Yes, he published it, growling a bit. He
had a fine understanding of humor, Ross, though he couldn’t have told
you about it. When I introduced Ross to the work of Peter de Vries, he
first said, “He won’t be good; he won’t be funny; he won’t know
English.” (He was the only successful editor I’ve known who approached
everything like a ship going on the rocks.) But when Ross had looked at
the work he said, “How can you get this guy on the phone?” He couldn’t
have said why, but he had that bloodhound instinct. The same with
editing. He was a wonderful man at detecting something wrong with a
story without knowing why..."
The cartoon in the discussion does not accompany this article.
When I located the cartoon, I found it bizarre. No wonder Ross went in a tailspin.
I could not stop smiling reading Ross's query: Was the woman up on the bookcase supposed to be alive, stuffed, or dead...
Here it is:
Artist: James Thurber, The New Yorker, March 16 1935
Today December 8 2019 is 125th birth anniversary of James Thurber
Following is the exchange between great James Thurber and Paris Review for the latter's issue dated Fall 1955:
"...PR: You say that your drawings often don’t come out the way you intended?
JT: Well, once I did a drawing for The New Yorker
of a naked woman on all fours up on top of a bookcase—a big bookcase.
She’s up there near the ceiling, and in the room are her husband and two
other women. The husband is saying to one of the women, obviously a
guest, “This is the present Mrs. Harris. That’s my first wife up there.”
Well, when I did the cartoon originally I meant the naked woman to be
at the top of a flight of stairs, but I lost the sense of perspective
and instead of getting in the stairs when I drew my line down, there she
was stuck up there, naked, on a bookcase.
Incidentally, that cartoon really threw The New Yorker
editor, Harold Ross. He approached any humorous piece of writing, or
more particularly a drawing, not only grimly but realistically. He
called me on the phone and asked if the woman up on the bookcase was
supposed to be alive, stuffed, or dead. I said, “I don’t know, but I’ll
let you know in a couple of hours.” After a while I called him back and
told him I’d just talked to my taxidermist, who said you can’t stuff a
woman, that my doctor had told me a dead woman couldn’t support herself
on all fours. “So, Ross,” I said, “she must be alive.” “Well then,” he
said, “what’s she doing up there naked in the home of her husband’s
second wife?” I told him he had me there.
PR: But he published it.
The cartoon in the discussion does not accompany this article.
When I located the cartoon, I found it bizarre. No wonder Ross went in a tailspin.
I could not stop smiling reading Ross's query: Was the woman up on the bookcase supposed to be alive, stuffed, or dead...
Here it is:
Artist: James Thurber, The New Yorker, March 16 1935
