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| Block of stamps © Bailey Higgins 2014 |
•••
Ralph C. Wood, The Comedy
of Redemption (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, p. 230—
[American comic novelist] Peter De Vries is so funny a writer that it may
seem inappropriate to take him seriously. His puns are unabashed. Like the
cleaning lady, he says, we all come to dust. The mere thought of cremation
turns one of his characters ashen. De Vries's aphorisms are no less outrageous.
The American home, we are told, is an invasion of privacy. Never put off until
tomorrow, we are advised, what you can put off indefinitely. What is an
arsonist, we are asked, but someone who has failed to set the world on fire? De
Vries's vignettes are even more discerningly surreal. A chiropractor attending
a patient throws out his own back. A husband who demands that his wife explain
why she bought a mink coat is told that she was cold. Another wife sues her
husband's mistress for alienation of his affections, and asks for $65 in
damages. |
| Art Deco Stamp © Bailey Higgins 2014 |
