Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Perelman, S(idney) J(oseph) - Paul Theroux (review date 1976)

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Paul Theroux (review date 1976)

SOURCE: "Marxist," in The New Statesman, Vol. 91, No. 2351, April 9, 1976, p. 476.

[In the following review of Vinegar Puss, Theroux calls Perelman "a shaping force of comedy " and offers the book high praise.]

It is amazing, not to say criminal, that these greedy islands, the gula archipelago so to speak, feast so mightily on old Marx Brothers films without even a nod to the chef. A little research on my part has revealed that none of S. J. Perelman's 18 previous books is in print in Britain, though there is a rumour that Crazy Like a Fox is circulating here in an American paperback. So much for his 50 years of conscientiously manufacturing laughing gas, and in this sense he bears some resemblance to his opposite number in Britain, 'Beachcomber'—indeed, everything that Richard Ingrams wrote in the preface to his superb collection The Best of Beachcomber applies to...

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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