Mere Anarchy
Book #30 of my reading list this year was Woody Allen's Mere Anarchy.
Perhaps it's a sad day when I've come to rely on Entertainment Weekly for my literary sense, but their review of Allen's new humor collection is to the point and spot on:
"In Mere Anarchy, his first humor compendium in 27 years, Woody Allen still loves to mix highbrow touches with absurdist shtick. But sometime after writing such hilarious '70s collections as Getting Even, Allen bought a bigger thesaurus — and it does not serve his comedy well. In these short pieces, amusing premises are so overwritten (''he could emend the scenario with sufficient cunning as to manumit you forever'') that the humor becomes impenetrable, buried under a pile of obscure synonyms." -- Josh WolkHear, hear.
Labels: books
posted by Jamie at 11:48 PM
2 Comments:
Jamie --
Look, I'll just come out and admit it. I googled myself and found your web page: there, I said it, and I feel good about coming clean.
That said, I'll forgive your "sad day when I rely on Entertainment Weekly for my literary sense" comment (we do read more than Harry Potter, I swear!) but I'm glad you agree with my Mere Anarchy review. Believe me, at one point there was no bigger Woody Allen fan than me, which is why this was all the more disappointing. You needed a pickaxe to find the humor in some of these pieces.
But hey, if you want to read something funny and with far fewer adjectives (and want to extend your reading list to 51), why not try my new memoir, "Cabin Pressure: One Man's Desperate Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor"? Sure, that was a lame plug, but would you expect anything less from a guy googling himself on a Saturday morning?
That said, it's hot as shit in Brooklyn now, so staying inside googling yourself is the best way not to burst into flames.
9:29 AM
Hmm...funny + fewer adjectives? Sounds intriguing and I owe you one for the unneccessary wanna-be hipster EW smack down. Consider it on the list.
12:05 AM
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