Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Perelman, S(idney) J(oseph) - Marshall Brickman (review date 1981)

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Marshall Brickman (review date 1981)

SOURCE: "Inimitable Perelman," in The Saturday Review (New York), Vol. 8, No. 7, July, 1981, p. 68.

[In the following review of The Last Laugh, Brickman observes of Perelman, "his genius defies criticism."]

The first time I met S. J. Perelman, the conversation turned to contemporary written humor, which he observed was a craft as obsolete and thankless as the manufacture of whalebone corset-stays. The name of a writer came up, a woman who had gleaned brilliant notices for a collection of rather ordinary pieces. I was searching for the precise phrase to characterize what I felt was the pallid quality of the lady's prose when Perelman leaned over and whispered, "milchedig." I felt at that moment a rush previously experienced only while watching Jerry West sink one from the outside, an elation, a momentary identification with—and admiration for—risk, accuracy, and grace.

The...

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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

1. Dorothy Parker