“The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good.” The sentence went off in my head like a Roman candle: it stated the entire case for enjoyment. Then he added: “Even if he isn’t.” That sentence hit me almost as hard, because I knew that Perelman’s life contained more than the usual share of depression and travail. Yet he went to his typewriter every day and made the English language dance. How could he not be feeling good? He cranked it up.
