James Thurber Critical Essay | Critical Review by Nathaniel Benchley

SOURCE: "If There Is No Human Comedy, It Will Be Necessary to Create One," in New York Herald Tribune Books, November 25, 1962, p. 3.

The following positive review considers Thurber's Credos and Curios in relation to the author's whole body of work.

Reviewing a book by James Thurber is something like describing the Taj Mahal; what can possibly be said that hasn't been said before? His twenty-fifth book is a collection of some of his last pieces and some not so recent, and it demonstrates, as though the point hadn't already been made, the wide range of Thurber's subjects and moods. There is none of the wild comedy of the early, or My Life and Hard Times, Thurber, nor any of the quick satire of the Fables for Our Time; this book shows the brooding, sometimes bitter Thurber, alternating with flashes of warmth and sentiment that are all the...
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