If necessity is the mother of invention, I think boredom is the father of discovery, at least in the area of finding new writers to read. That goes along with the codicil that says any task can be accomplished provided there’s another more important task you’re supposed to be doing instead. That’s how I found James Thurber.
Thurber was not missing at the time. In fact, he had been deceased for many years, but one day in ninth grade I discovered his work for myself while paging through my literature textbook rather than doing my chemistry practice equations.
Thurber was an author who applied his talents to a broad variety of markets. He wrote plays and short stories, did actual journalism and also drew cartoons. You may remember a story from a high school literature class about a large airedale terrier named “Muggs.”
Muggs was the subject of the story, “The Dog That Bit People.” It’s written with a spectacular dry wit and perfect timing.
Our teacher did not assign us to read that one, or most of the other stories in the book, for fear of displacing our daily tedium, but I found it myself while waiting for my period of internment in chemistry class to expire. I recall laughing out loud while reading it and, thus, getting in trouble, for clearly I was not then enduring my rightful share of tedium.
After reading about Muggs, I immediately set out to find more Thurber, checked “The Thurber Carnival” out of the county library and have been a dedicated fan ever since. The following line, along with scores of his others, comes back to me at odd moments and makes me laugh out loud even now: “No sign o’ nuthin,” said the cop who had first spoken to mother. “This guy,” he explained to the others, jerking a thumb at me, “was nekked. The lady seems historical.”
That passage appears in “The Night the Ghost Got In,” which is in the “Carnival” collection and also in the collection, “My Life and Hard Times.” The way he splits “This guy” and “was nekked,” is too perfect. “Historical” is overshadowed in the process but rounds out the passage nicely.
Paging through the short stories in the literature textbook was an important part of my education, and I did it because I was bored before phone scrolling was an option. My curiosity was piqued by many other stories I encountered the same way. I had known of Twain since very early childhood, of course, and I had read the Mississippi River rafting yarns, but I encountered his short stories through the literature text. I didn’t find out about Twain there, but there is where I found out I liked the Twain oeuvre.
If they’re lucky, each reader finds several varieties of writing that especially catch their imagination’s eye. Mine have the scent of burnt gunpowder and sarcasm.
Laughing out loud out of the blue about something no one else can see still gets me in trouble. But, still, it does make the tedium go away.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected]
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