Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Perelman, S(idney) J(oseph) - Eudora Welty (review date 1944)

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Eudora Welty (review date 1944)

SOURCE: "Strictly Perelman," in The New York Times Book Review, July 2, 1944, p. 6.

[In the following review, Welty positively assesses the satire, parody, and wordplay of Perelman's Crazy Like a Fox.]

This looks like the unholy work of only one man. Reader, S. J. Perelman has struck again.

"Great, fatuous booby that I was"—these are the words of Perelman himself—"I imagined advertising would be destroyed from the outside. It won't; it's going to bubble and heave and finally expire in the arms of two nuns, like Oscar Wilde." Not if S. J. Perelman can help it, it won't. In fact, here lies the body before us now, with a sign left pinned to its jacket saying "Crazy Like a Fox."

Advertising is not the only victim of this man. With his Dyak-like tread he has crept up on the movies, on Corn, on Jitter-bugging, Bee-keeping, Fashion, then Chichi, and with a maniacal glitter in his eye has done...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. The Saturday Review of Literature (review date 1937)
   2. Beatrice Sherman (review date 1943)
   3. Time (review date 1943)
   4. Eudora Welty (review date 1944)
   5. Thomas Sugrue (review date 1944)
   6. Russell Maloney (review date 1946)
   7. Harry Gilroy (review date 1949)
   8. The New York Times Book Review (review date 1950)
   9. Ted Robinson, Jr. (review date 1952)
   10. Herbert Kupferberg (review date 1955)
   11. Dorothy Parker (review date 1957)
   12. Walker Gibson (review date 1958)
   13. Eudora Welty (review dates 1958 and 1970)
   14. Michael Flanders (review date 1962)
   15. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1962)
   16. S. J. Perelman with William Cole and George Plimpton (interview date 1963)
   17. Norris W. Yates (essay date 1964)
   18. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1967)
   19. Richard Freedman (review date 1970)
   20. Roderick Nordell (review date 1970)
   21. Stefan Kanfer (review date 1970)
   22. Paul Theroux (review date 1976)
   23. Paul Theroux (review date 1977)
   24. Michael Wood (review date 1978)
   25. Barry Fantoni (review date 1978)
   26. Marshall Brickman (review date 1981)
   27. Terry Teachout (review date 1981)
   28. Wilfrid Sheed (review date 1981)
   29. Prudence Crowther (review date 1984)
   30. Steven H. Gale (essay date 1987)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright