Good point.
Which reminds me - 15 years ago, if asked if something was well-known in American culture, I could say “I know about it - so it’s well-known.” But now that I’m mumblety-mumble years old, I find that’s no longer true…
Thanks for the link to the short story and sorry for the potshot.
No problem - it made me laugh.
Ah, yes. That would be an important distinction.
If people want a good introduction to Thurber, “Mitty” was included in Thurber’s collection My World, and Welcome to It. The collection is remarkably eclectic, with short stories, casuals, travel pieces, and pure silly humor, and includes just about every major aspect of Thurber’s adult writings. I think it’s his finest.
It’s also in the “best of” collection, The Thurber Carnival, which has even more breadth, including a book of cartoons and his autobiographical My Life and Hard Times.
There’s the same problem here as in recommending a band. Do you point to a fine album or to the “best of” which wasn’t conceived of as a whole? You can go either way and win.
I love Thurber. My parents had some of his books. Didnt know about Waldo Kitty.
When he had a news program, Keith Olberman used to read a.Thurber story at the end of his Friday show.
I read all of Thurber in my late teens and early 20s (so the 1970s) so I’ve known the Mitty character since then. It wasn’t set in our schools of course.
I’ve never felt the urge to go back to it, especially since I’ve realised how misogynist much of it is.
In the story, thats true. But that’s not the case in the movies, as I understand it (not having seen either)? Some adventurous stuff really does happen to him?
I had never read the story, but I had heard of the character as he was referenced in articles and other works.
[QUOTE= Ian Dury]
Keep your silly ways or throw them out the window
The wisdom of your ways, I’ve been there and I know
Lots of other ways, what a jolly bad show
If all you ever do is business you don’t like
Sex and drugs and rock and roll
Sex and drugs and rock and roll
Sex and drugs and rock and roll
Is very good indeed
Every bit of clothing ought to make you pretty
You can cut the clothing, grey is such a pity
I should wear the clothing of Mr. Walter Mitty
See my tailor, he’s called Simon, I know it’s going to fit
[/QUOTE]
I certainly thought it was common knowledge.
Thurber’s place in the Cultural Literacy pantheon is definitely shrinking. I think it helps that I’m old enough to remember a one-season sitcom called My World and Welcome To It. Also, “A Thurber Carnival” was a staple of high school one-act competitions when I was a teenager.
I’m 44 and I definitely know who Walter Mitty is. I was in advanced classes in school, but I don’t remember ever reading that Thurber story, though I think we read a different one. I loved loved loved the Danny Kaye movie (saw in on tv several times over the years). I found the Thurber story and then read all the Thurber I could get my hands on.
Unfortunatey, when I was discussing the movie with my Fella a couple of years ago, we were dismayed to find out the Danny Kaye version hasn’t been released on DVD. He did use his google-fu to somehow find me a version that retains the english soundtrack but is subtitled in what I’m pretty sure is Korean. (A very sweet Christmas present that year.) I’m hoping that the new movie will lead to the Kaye movie being released.
And someone mentioned Marquis in this thread? Oh, I’m swooning over here! I love Marquis even more than Thurber.
I think a lot of Thurber’s works are great. The best place to read them these days is the Library of America’s collection of Thurber’s works called Writings & Drawings. This volume is edited by Garrison Keillor, which shows how essential many people consider Thurber’s works to be. (When Keillor was at a local signing once, the one thing I talked about when it was my turn in line was my gratitude to him for editing that volume of Thurber’s works.) My favorite of his works are the essays in Let Your Mind Alone!. Fables for Our Time is also quite good. Then there are his fantasies (which are mostly aimed at children) like The Thirteen Clocks and The White Deer, which are surprisingly free of cynicism for Thurber.
Written in 1937, this may still be the most modern of Thurber’s books. Self-help books of the 1930s sound exactly like self-help books of today. It’s uncanny. One of the real books he spoofs is Be Glad You’re Neurotic!, which sounds like the phoniest fake name ever, but was a big hit in 1936.
The Big Three of mid-century American humor were Thurber, Robert Benchley, and S. J. Perelman (sort of the way that Asimov, Heinlein,and Clarke are the Big Three of science fiction from that time). I think Benchley and Perelman were flat-out funnier than Thurber ever was, but they were narrow humorists: Thurber had range far outside the standard humor piece and the other two never could break out of that prison (which drove Benchley to fatal alcoholism).
Olbermann was my 1st exposure to Thurber. Though I had heard the name Walter Mitty, I couldn’t describe the plot. 35 y/o Yank, FWIW.
:dubious: I’m 31 and I had to read the short story in high school.
25 and I’ve heard of Thurber but not of Walter Mitty.
As a non-American, this sums me up too. Except I’m 44.
I’m 47, I read the story in high school and lots of other things by Thurber over the years. He was an important figure in American literature in the 20th century and well known enough to be mentioned by Elaine in a Seinfeld episode (when she drew a cartoon for the New Yorker).
I think perhaps Walter Mitty may have been better-known 36 years ago, when that song was written. I was born 20 years later than Ian Dury, and I understood the reference at the time, but I wouldn’t like to assume that anyone born since then would.