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

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Wilfrid Sheed (review date 1981)

SOURCE: "S. J. Perelman: A Basket of Grovels," in Essays in Disguise, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990, pp. 47-54.

[In the following review of The Last Laugh, originally published in 1981, Sheed examines the ingredients of Perelman's humor, but remarks that this volume lach some of the vigor of Perelman's earlier work.]

Cyril Connolly once observed that even P. G. Wodehouse might have profited from being told which of his books was better than which. But nobody wants to review a humorist. Such notices as the funnymen get are generally either facetious, because the reviewer dreads seeming pompous, or vaguely eulogistic: "Another whatnot by the inimitable . . . need one say more?"

Whether criticism ever really helps anybody, it can, by its sheer mass, make a writer seem impressive, like stuffing in a dress shirt. So it is sobering to realize that a writer of the late S. J. Perelman's eminence probably...

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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