Frivolity Unbound: Six Masters of the Camp Novel, Thomas Love Peacock, Max Beerbohm, Ronald Firbank, E.F. Benson, P.G. Wodehouse, Ivy Compton-Burnett

by Robert F. Kiernan

Literary Criticism, Humor, English Literature, Comedic Fiction

Genres: Literary Criticism

178 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1990

Reviews

[Sherwood Smith]

Some interesting (and mildly entertaining) essays here, formed around Kieran's definition of camp. I think he misses more than he hits when summing up literature older than, say, Edwardian, but his central idea is summed up here:

Camp invites a sophisticated, amoral mode of laughter that recognizes it might be critical but elects to be uncritically affectionate, not in a spirit of perversity, but for the psychic relief that such amorality and such release of affection afford.

So under that heading he gathers six authors who otherwise I would never have put together. I picked up this book for fifty cents at a used bookstore, because of the essays on E. F. Benson and P.G. Wodehouse.

Here, Kiernan does not disappoint. He clearly sees what is best in these two, and talks about why. And when he acknowledges that the Market Snodsbury Prize Giving scene from Right Ho, Jeeves is one of the best comic scenes ever, I mentally awarded him a campy high-five.