Thurber's world of wonders

You don't hear much about James Thurber (1894-1961) anymore, and it's not just because the glory days of the New Yorker as a humor magazine are many decades in the past. His work is perennially in print, and his "Writings and Drawings" have merited a Library of America edition. But Thurber aficionados do not present a united front because usually people are devoted to a single aspect of Thurber's comic genius: his dogs, noble animals carrying on with dignity in a world gone mad; the stories in his hilarious gem of a Midwestern memoir, "My Life and Hard Times"; his cartoon characters, brilliantly described by Neil Gaiman as "lumpy men and women who looked like they were made of cloth, all puzzled and henpecked and aggrieved." We Thurberites would need a convention to honor all our different passions.

By Sonja Bolle

July 27, 2008