Harold Ross died December 7, 1951, exactly one month after his fifty-ninth birthday....Ross is still all over the place for many of us, virtually stalking the corridors of our lives, disturbed and disturbing, fretting, stimulating, more evident in death than the living presence of ordinary men.
Description:
Sometimes a writer's style is so smooth that it goes unnoticed. No vivid descriptors, over-long sentences, or odd structures that draw attention away from the subject at hand. Just clean prose, like a congenial conversation from a witty observer to be shared with a close friend.
Such a smooth writing style is used by James Thurber in his biography, The Years With Ross, depicting the life of his boss, Harold Ross, founder and editor of the New Yorker magazine from 1925 - 1951.
While a biography about a magazine editor may not sound like a fascinating story, remember that the magazine in question is the New Yorker, a unique voice of cleverness, sophistication, and humor for 90 years. Ross, as the man who founded it, nursed it through early years, recruited writers and cartoonists like Thurber, E.B. White, Alexander Woollcott, Charles Addams, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and countless other literary luminaries, is a man of note and worthy of exploration by a clever writer like Thurber. The stories about Ross and these writers are priceless under Thurber's keen observation.
Thurber was an editor, writer and cartoonist in the earliest days the New Yorker starting in the 1920s and continuing for over 30 years. In The Years With Ross he starts with a short history of the founding of the magazine under Ross, the early struggles and commitment to quality humor, and the eventual success. Creating and enforcing the standards was Ross' role through thick and thin. He could be a demanding editor, seeking perfection in the humorous pieces submitted by writers hoping to be included in the New Yorker. As Ogden Nash put it:
Such a smooth writing style is used by James Thurber in his biography, The Years With Ross, depicting the life of his boss, Harold Ross, founder and editor of the New Yorker magazine from 1925 - 1951.
While a biography about a magazine editor may not sound like a fascinating story, remember that the magazine in question is the New Yorker, a unique voice of cleverness, sophistication, and humor for 90 years. Ross, as the man who founded it, nursed it through early years, recruited writers and cartoonists like Thurber, E.B. White, Alexander Woollcott, Charles Addams, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and countless other literary luminaries, is a man of note and worthy of exploration by a clever writer like Thurber. The stories about Ross and these writers are priceless under Thurber's keen observation.
Thurber was an editor, writer and cartoonist in the earliest days the New Yorker starting in the 1920s and continuing for over 30 years. In The Years With Ross he starts with a short history of the founding of the magazine under Ross, the early struggles and commitment to quality humor, and the eventual success. Creating and enforcing the standards was Ross' role through thick and thin. He could be a demanding editor, seeking perfection in the humorous pieces submitted by writers hoping to be included in the New Yorker. As Ogden Nash put it:
He was an almost impossible man to work for -- rude, ungracious and perpetually dissatisfied with what he read; and I admire him more than anyone I have met in professional life. Only perfection was good enough for him, and on the rare occasions he encountered it, he viewed it with astonished suspicion.Thurber, too, was often at odds with Ross who often did not understand the meaning of Thurber's cartoons. Still, Ross could give an backhanded compliment. One cartoonist asked Ross:
"Why do you reject drawings of mine, and print stuff by that fifth-rate Thurber?
"Third-rate," said Ross, coming promptly and bravely to the defense of my stature as an artist and his own reputation as an editor.Ross had many quirks which made him one of the greatest editors and judges of quality writing.
Ross's keen, almost boyish, enthusiasm for novel bits of information could disarm, for a while, his mature shrewdness and skepticism which, on clear days when the mental visibility was good, functioned as sharply as any man's....His mind is uncluttered by culture.That's why he can give prose and pictures the benefit of the clearest concentration of any editor in the worldThurber is also a master at pointing out other character traits of Ross that are peculiar, harmless, and incredibly funny, making Ross such a fascinating person to be around:
It was on that day in his office that Ross, discussing some guilty pair, said, "I'm sure he's s-l-e-e-p-i-n-g with her." He was the only man I've ever known who spelled out euphemisms in front of adults.A wonderfully thorough portrait of Harold Ross and life for writers of the most famous humor and culture magazine in the world. The clarity and simplicity of Thurber's writing style should be the example for all writers. I loved it.
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Thurber, James. The Thurber Carnival
The best humorous stories from Thurber's career, most previously appearing in the New Yorker magazine. Includes The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Have You Seen My Pistol, Honey-Bun? The Scotty Who Knew Too Much, and The Night the Bed Fell among many others.
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