Baffled By Benchley

I've been on a book binge recently—collecting vintage copies of Robert Benchley books. Benchley was a gentle humorist who published many articles in various magazines and newspapers in the 1920s and 30s. He was also cast as a comic character in numerous Hollywood movies in the late thirties and early forties.

His regular illustrator, Gluyas Williams (a buddy of Benchley’s when they were at Harvard), was a perfect match for Robert’s droll wit. Usually portraying Benchley as a eternally befuddled milquetoast, Williams’ line drawings are little masterpieces of observation:



With such titles as: My Ten Years in a Quandary (and How They Grew), From Bed to Worse (or Comforting Thoughts About the Bison), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or David Copperfield, and The Treasurer’s Report & Other Aspects of Community Singing, it quickly becomes apparent that you are dealing with one of the finest absurdist minds in all of literature. The individual essays are generally short and cover almost every aspect of mundane existence. There a quite a few pieces on train-travel, as well as humorous treatments of sports, politics, and even some satires on the writing styes of Dreiser, Lewis and Mencken. The earliest book I have, Of All Things, dates from 1921. With its numerous obscure names and archaic words, it can be baffling at times. Google is your friend.

Benchley died in 1945 but various “new” titles continued to be published for many years. They were compilations from his previous books, usually featuring the more “universal” of his essays. Those books aren’t as nice, and the illustrations were often printed from the worn-out plates of earlier editions. There are also modern trade paperbacks of his work. I haven’t seen them so I can’t comment on their quality.

Here is a list of the original titles:

Of All Things (1921)                      Benchley’s first book, good.
Love Conquers All (1922)                Many sports pieces, no illustrations.
Pluck and Luck (1925)                    Good essays, numerous illustrations.
The Early Worm (1927)                   Includes A Talk to Young Men.
20,000 Leagues… (1928)                Average collection, few illustrations.
The Treasurer’s Report… (1930)       Better effort and superior printing.
No Poems… (1932)                        Superior book in every way.
From Bed to Worse… (1934)            Solid effort, good over-all.
My Ten Years… (1936)                    Good writing, no big illustrations.
After 1903—What? (1938)               Best book, good illustrations.

Inside Benchley (1942)                    First (and best) compilation.
One Minute Please (1945)                UK compilation, I haven’t seen it.
Benchley—or Else! (1947)                OK posthumous compilation.
Chips off the Old Benchley (1949)     Compilation with many new entries.
The Bedside Manner (1952)              UK compilation

The 1920s books are a little lighter in tone but more dated, while the 1930s books are generally better, with more and better Gluyas Williams’ illustrations.

One note: the frontispiece of No Poems includes this bizarre illustration:

It is out of character for Benchley, who was a champion of civil rights, and while there are other instances of “non-PC” writing in the text and images of these books, it is worth remembering that times change, especially in the field of humor. It may take the modern reader a while to “get” Benchley, but it is worth the effort. A little poking around the internet will turn up many of these titles in PDF versions.

Kindred Spirit

While blogging may be relatively new, other forms of short form writing are not. From Pepys to the present, literature has been big on the small, so to speak. Last weekend, while rummaging through the local antique stores, I found a volume of Robert Benchley's essays- After 1903- What? -illustrated by the Aubrey Beardsley-influenced Gluyas Williams.

Benchley, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, wrote short pieces for The New Yoker and other publications and also had a brief career in the movies. These articles portray a mild-mannered man, often bewildered and amused by the world around him. His two or three page ruminations would make for a perfect blog, especially when complemented by Gluyas' sublime drawings.

The older I get the more I realize that a man is a fool to think of himself in first person. With the world changing as it is, there are only second-person plurals.
I could go on looking at life like this forever, just a-sittin' and a-dreamin', with only an occasional attack of nausea.

Great Minds Think Alike

Lately, I’ve been reading a massive 5 volume collection of the writings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1894-1959. As you can imagine, it contains numerous insights, beliefs and other interesting tidbits. As I was working my way through volume 4, I found this picture:


Photograph by Deiner

It is a pleasant, if somewhat stiff, shot of Frank and his third wife, Olgivanna. The thing that really caught my attention, however, was on the book shelf behind Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Almost exactly between the couple, on the top shelf, sat a dark book with a distinctive, 5-stripe design above a cartoon figure on its spine :



Where had I seen that before?



After 1903—What?, is a collection of short essays by the humorist Robert Benchley.  I’ve featured the book’s sublime illustrations (by Gluyas Williams) here a couple of times. The book, as a whole, is only sporadically funny today; it was a whole different world back then.

At any rate, I’ll take the coincidence as proof of the noble spirit I share with FLLW.

We Wish You Were Here…

                  

   The Weaver and I have escaped from the snowy north for a couple of weeks to revel in the sun and sand at a secret location in the desert Southwest. But fear not, dear readers, while I'm away there will be the usual olio from the Professor's fevered imagination, as well as regular installments of The Matriarchy.


Illustration by Gluyas Williams for 
After 1903—What?, by Robert Benchley
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1938