Remember Laughter: A Life of James Thurber

by Neil A. Grauer

An anecdotal, centennial celebration of Thurber's birth addresses his private life, agony over going blind at the height of his career, inexhaustible humor, literary and artistic talents, and lasting popularity more than thirty years after his death. UP.

Genres: Biography

255 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 1994

Reviews

[May Ling]

Wow… I don’t know if they could have possibly made this comics life more boring. I was waiting the entire time to hear something that would wake me up. I mean, you can barely tell he’s a comic until later in the book and even then it’s missing, well, plot. It reads more like an obituary. No wonder this was reduced for clearance.

I mean this is a guy that was loved by many and was early in the art of comics which we all know and love. He fought potential blindness at parts of his life. But damn this is boring in its writing style.

[Margaret]

Grauer gives a brief but satisfying biography of a writer I have long loved. Grauer obviously loves Thurber's work, too, and emphasizes the depth and breadth of his literary and artistic talents. Yet he steers away from painting an idealized portrait of the man himself; he discusses Thurber's undoubted misogyny and his bad temper and pessimism, especially in later life, not whitewashing them but often offering possible reasons for Thurber's views and actions.

What I appreciated the most in Remember Laughter, I think, were the frequent quotations from those who knew Thurber, particularly the insights offered by Thurber's daughter Rosemary and some of E.B. White's comments on Thurber's work (in Thurber's drawings, said White, "it is always apparent to Thurber that at the very moment one's heart is caught in an embrace, one's foot may be caught in a piano stool").

[Ronnie Barnes]

It's interesting enough in that it does provide details of Thurber's life. I stopped at about halfway through and may pick it up again someday to finish. I can't really say why I lost interest, too many other more exciting books to read? I really did like that several of Thurber's cartoons are included in the book.

[Tom]

This is a compact, easy-to-read biography of Thurber that doesn't shy away from discussing some of his more unsavory traits. Grauer is good at making the case that most of Thurber's humorous writing was also deadly serious. A decent introduction to Thurber and his work, with several pages of critical comment to put it all perspective.

[Milt]

unique up on the laughter

[Boris]

A wooden but thorough biography of James Thurber. It has a good index and plenty of footnotes.

[Karla Huebner]

This was a decent biography; seemed carefully researched, fair, neither idolizing nor demonizing its subject. At the same time, I'm not sure that there's a whole lot more to say about it. I did learn the basics of Thurber's life and discovered that he spent much more of it writing than cartooning. I was also mildly surprised to learn that Thurber was from Columbus, Ohio, and attended OSU.