Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Thurber, James (Vol. 125) - Nathaniel Benchley (review date 25 November 1962)
Thurber, James (Vol. 125) - Nathaniel Benchley (review date 25 November 1962)
Nathaniel Benchley (review date 25 November 1962)
SOURCE: "If There Is No Human Comedy, It Will Be Necessary to Create One," in New York Herald Tribune Books, November 25, 1962, p. 3.
[The following positive review considers Thurber's Credos and Curios in relation to the author's whole body of work.]
Reviewing a book by James Thurber is something like describing the Taj Mahal; what can possibly be said that hasn't been said before? His twenty-fifth book is a collection of some of his last pieces and some not so recent, and it demonstrates, as though the point hadn't already been made, the wide range of Thurber's subjects and moods. There is none of the wild comedy of the early, or My Life and Hard Times, Thurber, nor any of the quick satire of the Fables for Our Time; this book shows the brooding, sometimes bitter Thurber, alternating with flashes of warmth and sentiment that are all the more welcome for being...
[The entire page is 720 words long]
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Criticism
- Nathaniel Benchley (review date 25 November 1962)
- Frank Getlein (review date 22 December 1962)
- The Atlantic Monthly (review date December 1962)
- Charles E. May (essay date Fall 1978)
- Wes D. Gehring (essay date Winter 1979–80)
- Roderick Nordell (review date 14 December 1981)
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- Edward Sorel (review date 5 November 1989)
- Anthony Quinn (review date 15 December 1989)
- William Joyce (review date 25 November 1990)
- Anthony Kaufman (essay date Spring 1994)
- James Idema (review date 10 July 1994)
- Craig Seligman (essay date Fall 1994)
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