Pluck and Luck

by Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Works, including How to Sleep , the film of 1935, and My Ten Years in a Quandary , the book of 1936, of Robert Charles Benchley, humorist, critic, and actor, often pitted an average American against the complexities of modern life.

People best knew Robert Charles Benchley as a newspaper columnist. He began at the Lampoon and meanwhile attended Harvard University and wrote many essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.
From New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table, short style brought acclaim, respect, and success to Benchley to contemporaries in the burgeoning industry.

Benchley contributed best remembered influential topical or absurdist essays to The New Yorker. He also made a name in Hollywood, when his popular success won best short subject at the academy awards of 1935, and his many memorable appearances in such as Foreign Correspondent of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock and a dramatic turn in Nice Girl? . He wrote his legacy in numerous short appearances.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pluck and Luck is a 1925 collection of Robert Benchley magazine pieces.
There are two main types of Benchley writing here, genre parody and slice-of-life humor. The former are the most unhinged bits of the book, in which popular literary styles of the day and various types of stuffed-shirt academic writing are folded, spindled, and mutilated. The best way to let you know what to expect from these pieces is to think of those monologues Groucho delivers in most of the Marx Brothers movies, then drop Goethe references into one. That's Benchley in a nutshell. While some of the more specialized literary parodies would work better if I actually knew who the authors were (and they're namechecked via subtitle in a few cases), you can still get enjoyment at how Benchley twists the language into pretzels.

The other pieces take us through more prosaic concerns, without nearly as much punishment to the language, but without losing the wit. Here Benchley bemoans the plight of married couples roped into visiting the neighbors, the one day of summer vacation of which no pictures exist (i.e. the day you have go through the misery of packing up), and that evergreen favorite of humorists since time began, travelling with children. It's not as weird as the parodies, but closer to the heart, so still good stuff.

[Miss Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Benchley's small articles and essays offer an interesting look at life in the 1920's-1930's.

[Don Gubler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some truly funny bits. Worth the read.