In honor of Short Story Month, which to be honest is every month for me, I'm posting some of my favorite short stories. I've noticed that most people when asked to name their "favorite" short stories often reach for the surreal, the grotesque or the melancholy. But far fewer, in my experience, remember our great comic writers -- and the masters of the irony, wit and laughter are often ignored in favor of their gloomier counterparts.
Well, as the saying goes, dying is easy, comedy is hard -- and for my money, few American writers have achieved the funny heights of the great Ring Lardner. His command of American vernacular was second to none (and if you haven't read his baseball novel, You Know Me, Al, you are in for a real treat!)
Lardner wrote many great short stories, and they're all a pleasure to read. But none, I think, is as simultaneously funny and touching as The Golden Honeymoon, in which he captures the nuances of a certain kind of American speech with amazing precision (seems easy, but it's not.)
But it's dangerous to write about humor, so here's the link to this wonderful story:
The Golden Honeymoon--Ring Lardner (1885-1933):
'via Blog this'
Well, as the saying goes, dying is easy, comedy is hard -- and for my money, few American writers have achieved the funny heights of the great Ring Lardner. His command of American vernacular was second to none (and if you haven't read his baseball novel, You Know Me, Al, you are in for a real treat!)
Lardner wrote many great short stories, and they're all a pleasure to read. But none, I think, is as simultaneously funny and touching as The Golden Honeymoon, in which he captures the nuances of a certain kind of American speech with amazing precision (seems easy, but it's not.)
But it's dangerous to write about humor, so here's the link to this wonderful story:
The Golden Honeymoon--Ring Lardner (1885-1933):
'via Blog this'
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