S.J. Perelman: Critical Essays. - book reviews

S. J. Perelman: Critical Essays, the first volume of a new series entitled "Studies in Humor," is a commendable beginning, but it may not sustain editor Steven H. Gale's belief that Perelman belongs among such "major humorists" as Geoffrey Chaucer and Mark Twain who are to appear in subsequent volumes of the series, for which Gale is to serve as General Editor.

From newspapers, journals, and scholarly books, Gale reprints 24 pieces of opinion and scholarship on Perelman that span the seven decades of his career. These inclusions are sufficiently representative despite the amount of commentary Perelman has received and the size of his oeuvre: more than 560 sketches (many of which are collected into 23 volumes), a novel, and dramatic works, which include stage plays and both film and television scripts. As evidence of growing interest in Perelman's work, Gale lists (in addition to his own two books) S. J. Perelman: An Annotated Bibliography (1985); S. J. Perelman: A Critical Study (1987), a Twayne volume by Douglas Fowlet; S. J. Perelman (1983); the Dorothy Hermann biography, S. J. Perelman: A Life (1986); and Prudence Crowther's Don't Tread on Me: The Selected Letters of S. J. Perelman (1987). Also duly noted are Perelman's influence upon other writers and his many honors.

Even so, among sincere admirers one finds perceptions that may count against Perelman's acquiring the status of a Chaucer or Twain. For many readers his importance is a consequence of style, not substance. For example, Peter De Vries, echoing Frost's praise of E. A. Robinson, lauds Perelman thusly: "His life was a revel in the felicities of language." Although he means only to praise, Dc Vries mentions Faulkner who "has blurred beyond recovery the distinction between it [the novel] and that of the humorist." This distinction comes in a tribute to an author of only one novel but upwards of 600 short sketches.

In "The Exploits of El Sid" Tom Wolfe sums up the bulk of Perelman's oeuvre: "from the beginning of his career to the end he was capable of being the funniest writer in America-over the quarter-horse distance of 1,500 words." Despite their brevity, Wolfe skips to the end of the sketches because Perelman "seldom pauses to develop his characters"; he "doesn't even expect the reader to care about them. They like the stories themselves are but the stage for the big show: S. J. Perelman's virtuosity as a stylist." For readers who want humor embodied in a Huck Finn or a Wife of Bath, Perelman probably will not excite a comparable interest.

But other selections in the volume effectively counter the opinions of those who regard Perelman simply as a virtuoso of style. Their arguments call into question prevailing opinions about style itself. Perelman is, as S. J. Perelman: Critical Essays makes clear, a, supremely witty writer who offers readers more reasons to know him than the immediate pleasure of his comic vision.

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