Synopses & Reviews
and#147;Wayne Koestenbaum is our Roland Barthes, updated, remastered, cleared for the pressure zone of American mythologies. Delicate and brave, discerning and outrageous, the meditations organized around the other Marx track unconscious byways and the remarkable turns of a highly personal investment. Startlingly original, Koestenbaum provides critical understanding with poetic acuity and breathtaking disclosure.and#8221;and#151;Avital Ronell, author of
The Test Drive"The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is an effusive and provocative celebration of the potential of nonverbal communication, lying somewhere between poetry and criticism, history and diary, polemic and self-analysis. It is also funny, smart, often revelatory, and always sharp. It is, for all its analytical depth, a great read."and#151;Michael Long, author of Beautiful Monsters: Imagining the Classic in Musical Media
and#147;Behind that face and in Harpoand#8217;s body, Wayne Koestenbaum finds more material than existed in New Yorkand#8217;s fabled garment district. Koestenbaum's work is compelling and surprising; his detailed explorations, gifts to readers wondering about what lies beneath our cultureand#8217;s surfaces. Read Wayne Koestenbaum for his exuberant embrace of the unrecognized or ignored; for his pleasure in explaining the inexplicable, and for his delight in deciphering Elizabeth Taylorand#8217;s cleavage. Read him now for unveiling the most enigmatic of presences, Harpo Marx. and#151;Lynne Tillman, author of American Genius, A Comedy
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and#8220;A zesty and deeply literate joy to read.and#8221;
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"A charming and rigorous study."--Sight and Sound Magazine
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“Koestenbaum provides an informed, original, and near-obsessive assessment of all things Harpo.” Noah Isenberg - Bookforum
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and#8220;A fittingly zany, aphoristic, and meandering study of the great mime of Marx Brothers fame. . . . Koestenbaumand#8217;s approach to Harpo makes for highly animated reading.and#8221;
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“A zesty and deeply literate joy to read.” Jonathan Kiefer
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“A charming and rigorous study.” New Haven Review
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and#8220;Provocative, original scholarship that lights a fire under the typically stodgy studies that we usually get from university press star biographies.and#8221;
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and#8220;A charming and rigorous study.and#8221;
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and#8220;Koestenbaum provides an informed, original, and near-obsessive assessment of all things Harpo.and#8221;
Synopsis
The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marxand#8217;s physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpoand#8217;s chief and yet heretofore unexplored attributeand#151;his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpoand#8217;s bodyand#151;its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, and#147;cuteand#8221; pathos, and more. In a virtuosic performance, Koestenbaumand#8217;s text moves gracefully from insightful analysis to cultural critique to autobiographical musing, and provides Harpo with a host of odd bedfellows, including Walter Benjamin and Barbra Streisand.
About the Author
Wayne Koestenbaum is Distinguished Professor of Literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of thirteen books of criticism, poetry, and fiction, including a biography of Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed The Queenand#8217;s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
I. Early Ecstatic Emptiness
The Holy Fool Flees Languageand#8217;s Stink Bomb: The Cocoanuts (1929)
Pinky, the Pointing Scapegoat, Lags Behind: Duck Soup (1933)
The Mad Moheland#8217;s Goo-Goo Eyes of Monomaniacal Attunement: A Night at the Opera (1935)
Poppy Power; or, The Thick-Enough Art of Zombie Dumbfoundment: Animal Crackers (1930)
II. Later Astonishments
Fake Dead Jew as Cute Zoo-Idiot: Room Service (1938)
Passand#233; Punchyand#8217;s Humiliated Buddy Huddle: At the Circus (1939)
Freeze Rustyand#8217;s Anal Rage in a Cozy Void: Go West (1940)
Lonely Wackyand#8217;s Incremental Lines of Flight: The Big Store (1941)
The Bubble-Blowing Demarcator Tickles Totality: A Night in Casablanca (1946)
Bulge, Glaze, Pause, Shock; or, The Bushy-Haired Ragpickerand#8217;s Burnt Offering: Love Happy (1949)
III. The Idiot Tumbles Back to the Beginning of Time
The Undeliverable Ice of Pinkyand#8217;s Mom-Mouth: Horse Feathers (1932)
The Kippering, Bopping, Shushing, Bear-Hugging, Beard-Pulling Bustle: Monkey Business (1931)
The Pretzel Glimmer-Eye of Stuffyand#8217;s Stuttering Surge: A Day at the Races (1937)