Synopses & Reviews
The Lady on 142
The train was twenty minutes late, we found out when we bought our tickets, so we sat down on a bench in the little waiting room of the Cornwall Bridge station. It was too hot outside in the sun. This midsummer Saturday had got off to a sulky start, and now, at three in the afternoon, it sat, sticky and restive, in our laps.
There were several others besides Sylvia and myself waiting for the train to get in from Pittsfield: a colored woman who fanned herself with a Daily News, a young lady in her twenties reading a book, a slender, tanned man sucking dreamily on the stem of an unlighted pipe. In the centre of the room, leaning against a high iron radiator, a small girl stared at each of us in turn, her mouth open, as if she had never seen people before. The place had the familiar, pleasant smell of railroad stations in the country, of something compounded of wood and leather and smoke. In the cramped space behind the ticket window, a telegraph instrument clicked intermittently, and once or twice a phone rang and the stationmaster answered it briefly. I couldn't hear what he said.
Sylvia's eyes had the lost, reflective look they wear when she is trying to remember in what box she packed the Christmas-tree ornaments. The expressions on the faces of the colored woman, the young lady, and the man with the pipe had not changed. The little staring girl had gone away.
Our train was not due for another five minutes, and I sat back and began trying to reconstruct the lady on 142, the lady Conductor Reagan had, the lady the office was asking about. I moved nearer to Sylvia and whispered, "See if the trains are numbered in your timetable." She got the timetable out of her handbag and looked at it. "One forty-two," she said, "is the 12:45 from New York." This was the train that had gone by a few minutes before. "The woman was taken sick," said Sylvia. "They are probably arranging to have a doctor or her family meet her."
The colored woman looked around at her briefly. The young woman, who had been chewing gum, stopped chewing. The man with the pipe seemed oblivious. I lighted a cigarette and sat thinking. "The woman on 142," I said to Sylvia, finally, "might be almost anything, but she definitely is not sick." The only person whodid not stare at me was the man with the pipe. Sylvia gave me her temperature-taking look, a cross between anxiety and vexation. just then our train whistled and we all stood up. 1 picked up our two bags and Sylvia took the sack of string beans we had picked for the Connells.
When the train came clanking in, I said in Sylvia's ear, "He'll sit near us. You watch." "Who? Who will?" she said. "The stranger," I told her, "the man with the pipe."
Sylvia laughed. "He's not a stranger," she said. "He works for the Breeds." I was certain that he didn't. Women like to place people; every stranger reminds them of somebody.
The man with the pipe was sitting three seats in front of us, across the aisle, when we got settled. I indicated him with a nod of my head. Sylvia took a book out of the top of her overnight bag and opened it. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. I looked around before replying. A sleepy man and woman sat across from us. Two middle-aged women in the seat in front of us were discussing the severe griping pain one of them had experienced as the result of an inflamed diverticulum. A slim, dark-eyed young woman sat in the seat behind us. She was alone.
"The trouble with women," I began, "is that they explain everything by illness. I have a theory that we would be celebrating the twelfth of May or even the sixteenth of April as Independence Day if Mrs. Jefferson hadn't got the idea her husband had a fever and put him to bed."
Sylvia found her place in the book. "We've been all through that before," she said. "Why couldn't the woman on 142 be sick?"
That was easy, I told her. "Conductor Reagan," I said, "got off the train at Cornwall Bridge and spoke to thestationmaster. 'I've got the woman the office was asking about, ' he said."
Sylvia cut in. "He said 'lady.'"
Synopsis
James Thurber's unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century. A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945. The Thurber Carnival captures the depth and breadth of his talent. The pieces here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker, include selections from such beloved classics as My World and Welcome to It, The Owl in the Attic, The Seal in the Bathroom, and Men, Women and Dogs. Thurber's take on life, society, and human nature is timeless and will continue to delight readers even as they recognize a bit of themselves in his brilliant sketches.
Synopsis
An authentic American genius. . . . Mr. Thurber belongs in the great lines of American humorists that includes Mark Twain and Ring Lardner. --Philadelphia Inquirer
James Thurber's unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century. A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his talent and the breadth of his wit. The stories compiled here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker, are from his uproarious and candid collection My World and Welcome to It--including the American classic The Secret Life of Walter Mitty--as well as from The Owl in the Attic, The Seal in the Bathroom, Men, Women and Dogs. Thurber's take on life, society, and human nature is timeless and will continue to delight readers even as they recognize a bit of themselves in his brilliant sketches.
Synopsis
James Thurber is widely hailed as one of the finest humorists of this century. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Mr. Thurber belongs in the great line of American humorists which includes Mark Twain and Ring Lardner." Originally published by Harper & Brothers is 1945, The Thurber Carnival has retained a steady following for more than 50 years, featuring such beloved classics as My World and Welcome to It. The Owl in the Attic, The Seal in the Bedroom, and Men, Women, and Dogs. Praised by the Saturday Review of Literature as "one of the absolutely essential books of our time, " this timeless favorite will grace the bookshelves of a whole new generation of Thurber fans.
Synopsis
James Thurber was one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century (and a crack cartoonist to boot). A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his talent and the breadth of his wit. The stories compiled here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker, are from his uproarious and candid collection My World and Welcome to It—including the American classic "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"—as well as from The Owl in the Attic, The Seal in the Bathroom, and Men, Women and Dogs.
About the Author
James Thurber (1894-1961) created some thirty volumes of humor, fiction, children's books, cartoons, and essays in just about as many years. A founding member of The New Yorker staff, Thurber wrote and illustrated such enduring books as The Thurber Carnival and My Life and Hard Times, which have appeared in countless editions and dozens of languages throughout the world.