I was awake in the wee hours the other night, hobbling around the living room trying to shake off some pain from a recent leg injury. While walking to and fro, I decided to walk over to the mantle where several Thurber drawings hang. As I approached them I began smiling – I always do when I go to visit them.
Once I’d stood there for a few moments, taking them in – studying, for the zillioneth time, the Thurber people in one drawing, and the frolicking rabbits (above) in another — I had an impulse to open The Thurber Carnival and read his Pet Department pieces.
So there I was, in pain, but laughing once again at Thurber’s writing and drawings. It never occurred to me before, but The Pet Department is, for me, the Mt. Everest of Thurber’s writing. I’ve written about the Thurber drawing that changed my life, but it was the illustrated Pet Department pieces that years ago drew me forever and completely to Thurber’s world. The Pet Department’s eighteen Q&As, beginning with the dog in a trance, and ending with the “horse with a span of antlers strapped onto its head” are evergreen, ever-gold.
By the time I finished reading, there wasn’t much left of the night, and, yeah, the pain was gone.
I first encountered Thurber’s Pet Department pieces in a freshman literature class (focusing on humor). Forty-plus years on, and after dozens of re-readings, they still make me laugh out loud. Rare, timeless gems.