Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Perelman, S(idney) J(oseph) - The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1967)

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The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1967)

SOURCE: Review of Chicken Inspector No. 23, in The Times Literary Supplement, November 23, 1967, p. 1101.

[In the following review, the unsigned critic remarks that the pieces in Perelman's Chicken Inspector No. 23 are "as furiously and fluently disenchanted as ever."]

Some people "have" S. J. Perelman in the way that others "have" French, Urdu or Chinook, and the test of their competence is how many and memorable are the chapter titles they can quote. For the list of contents in a book by Mr. Perelman is more precious than the actual texts of most other funny writers. Chicken Inspector No. 23, his first collection in five lean years, contains at least one title to be thankful for: "Nobody Knows the Rubble I've Seen/Nobody Knows but Croesus," and the essay that follows—about househunting in Hollywood—is just as good.

Most of the thirty-three...

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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