Last Thurber Thursday I wrote of receiving a tower of Thurber files from the one-and-only Michael Rosen. I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y going through the files, reading news clippings I’d never seen before (so many!).
In a 1940 article by Jack Sher “Meet James Thurber” there was this fascinating exchange [slightly abridged below] between Sher and Thurber. Mr. Rosen also seemed to find this of interest. He highlighted the dialogue on the clipping.
Sher: “When did you learn to draw?”
Thurber: “I don’t know how to draw. Say, if I could draw, I’d probably be starving.”
Sher: “No. Then, who does draw those men and women I see in the magazines?”
Thurber: “You know you don’t think they’re men and women. Somebody once said that I am incapable of drawing a man, but that I draw abstract things like despair, disillusionment, despondency, sorrow, lapse of memory, exile, and that these things are sometimes in a shape that might be called Man or Woman.”
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James Thurber’s A-Z Entry:
James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”
Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website
