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Steven H. Gale (essay date 1987)

SOURCE: "Themes and Techniques," in S. J. Perelman: A Critical Study, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 175-91

[In the following essay, Gale studies Perelman's subject matter and comic style.]

Take one part American humor tradition, sprinkle in elements from the Yiddish theater, and blend these ingredients thoroughly in a piping hot comic genius' mind, and the result is S. J. Perelman's style. Not surprisingly, that style is unique and recognizable. As Ogden Nash, one of Perelman's collaborators, says in a review of Chicken Inspector No. 23, "Perelman's style is so uniquely his own that his readers in The New Yorker, which long ago established the peekaboo custom of printing the contributor's name at the tail of the article . . . need only glance at the first paragraph to identify its author."¹

What are the components of this style that combine to make the product so easily...

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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