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Article: James Agee: a life.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- February 22, 1985
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1985 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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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, he had never read, but he made him seem more clear to me, and less ...