'List your pen name. (I just call it BallPoint.)' ;-)

Kerr, Munro and Marcel Proust | A Special, Little Feature

It’s quite intriguing to know that humorists, who are very often categorized under the pejo-label ‘pulp fiction’ have not found that special status or ‘canonical’ status that the so-called serious writers have enjoyed all along, in literary studies.

Be it a Wodehouse, or a Woody Allen, a Carroll, or a Carlin, a Kelly or a Kerr, they’ve always been relegated down the ages, to the margins, off the big guys who do ‘serious’ literary works!

In fact, it’s been these lovable, amazing humorists who have taken it upon themselves all along, to enliven our words and worlds through their power humour and sparkling wit with such grace and elegance!

When Twinkle Khanna is celebrated as a rage all over India and remains till date a top notcher when it comes to high-grossing books, it’s only meet that we give such humorists as a Khanna or a Kerr, their rightful due in the syllabus too!

One such humorist who comes in this illustrious, noble lineage of humorists is Jean Kerr, an Irish-American author who is known for her inimitable humorous bestseller, titled, Please Don't Eat the Daisies!

The Boston Globe’s blurby intro to the book is such a lucrative teaser for the reader to get hooked onto this humorous 148-page read, right away!

It says,

Rarely does a book of humor create such spontaneous and universal acclaim as Jean Kerr's bouncing best seller about the perils and pitfalls of motherhood, wifehood, lady-of-the-househood, career womanhood, and other assorted hazards that face one today. On top of best seller lists everywhere, Please Don't Eat The Daisies is unquestionably one of the funniest books ever written anywhere, anytime, by anyone!

The Introduction to the book by Kerr herself, is added reason to give you the tickle right from start!

Martha Blanchard’s drawings that have interspersed these humour-powered pages, indeed take us back to our kiddo days when these cartoons were quite a rage and a phenomenon!

From her own Introduction, then for us all –

I HAD THE FEELING all along that this book should have an Introduction, because it doesn't have an Index and it ought to have something. But I was getting nowhere until I received this dandy questionnaire from the publicity department at Doubleday.

Of course, there were a certain number of routine questions. List your pen name. (I just call it BallPoint.) What do you do when you're not writing? (Buy geraniums.) Husband's name? (Honey.) List your previous addresses. (Funny, that's what The Tailored Woman was so curious about.)

But then we began to probe deeper. What is your life's ambition? What do you hope to accomplish ere dusk sets in? As far as this book is concerned, who should be notified in case of accident?

A Martha Blanchard cartoon from the book

It was this next to last question that really yanked me to attention. It made me realize—and for the very first time—that in my scant two score minus seven years (all right, I'm the same age as Margaret Truman; let somebody check on her) 1 have already achieved my life ambition. That's something, you know. I feel it sets me apart, rather, like that nice convict who raises canaries in San Quentin.

And then comes a sequence of 15 short, fast-paced humorous narratives that are so hilarious and funny all the way!

Kerr, from thence on has become a rage both in literary fiefdoms and in tinsel towns worldwide! Her work was adapted into a movie and a television series as well!

So much for the humour power of Kerr, whose writing style, is quite often compared with the inimitable humourist, James Thurber!

Canadian short-story writer and Nobel Laureate Alice Ann Munro is yet another established writer, whose Nobel citation eulogises her as, “master of the contemporary short story”!

Like Kerr, Alice Munro’s works have also been much adapted onto screen! And her writing style has resemblances to Chekhov’s (as another short story writer Cynthia Ozick points out!)

And added similarity with Kerr here is that, as with Kerr’s Please Don't Eat the Daisies! Which contains a series of 15 humorous narratives,

Munro’s short story collection titled, Dance of the Happy Shades also has 15 serious narratives, that, even if you ransack and rummage through their words and paragraphs, you would rarely come across the guffaws or the wry humour anywhere!

Sample this –

Yesterday afternoon, yesterday, I was going along the street to the Post Office, thinking how sick I was of snow, sore throats, the whole dragged out tail-end of winter, and I wished I could pack off to Florida, like Clare. It was Wednesday afternoon, my half-day. I work in King’s Department Store, which is nothing but a ready-to-wear and dry goods, in spite of the name. They used to have groceries, but I can just barely  recall that. 

Momma used to take me in and set me on the high stool and old Mr. King would give me a handful of raisins and say, I only give them to the pretty girls. They took the groceries out when he died, old Mr. King, and it isn’t even King’s Department Store any more, it belongs to somebody named Kruberg. They never come near it themselves, just send Mr. Hawes in for manager. I run the upstairs, Children’s Wear, and put in the Toyland at Christmas. I’ve been there fourteen years and Hawes doesn’t pick on me, knowing I wouldn’t take it if he did.

And although comparisons can never stand their merit here, as both writers seem to excel in their own sweet ways with their pens!

And yes! much unlike Kerr though, Alice doesn’t dabble with humour! In fact, her writings are known for their blend of the ironic and the serious, with such emotional depth and feel to them!

Moreover, Alice Munro’s writings have such an intense regional focus to them all! Set in Huron County, Ontario, her stories deal with any many themes that she herself has faced or battled all along, be it the dilemmas of a girl coming of age, or the problems of growing up as a girl in a family in a little town, or on themes as serious as Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, or Loveship, all her characters exhibit an amazing mettle and undergo a great sense of revelation over the course of her stories!

Well, Kerr and Munro have been stalwarts in their own sweet ways much akin to Marcel Proust, on whom we’ve discussed on our past post HERE.

What's then the Kerr connect with a Munro or a Marcel Proust, you may ask, right?

All three have this one thing in common amongst them! All three have been great short story writers too!

The second commonality amongst them three, is that, all three celebrate their birthdays today! 

Would you then, dear reader, join us all in celebrating their birthdays today!

Here’s wishing a Very Happy Birthday to Jane Kerr, Munro and Marcel Proust for giving us timeless classics by the number that have swayed our sensibilities bigtime, all of the time!

image courtesy: etsydotcom