National Review, February 22nd, 1985
JAMES THURBER'S "Something to Say," a story from The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, is a wicked spoof of that quintessentially American literary Genre, the memoir of genius unrealized. Elliot Vereker, the "genius" of Thurber's tale, is an alcoholic writer whose knack for self-dramatization is surpassed only by his inability to get anything written:
He never believed in doing anything or in having anything done, either for the benefit of mankind or for individuals. He would have written, but for his philosophical indolence, very great novels indeed. . . . Proust, I later discovered, ...
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