The Book of Nonsense: An Anthology

by Paul Jennings (Editor), Peter Simple (Contributor)

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Poetry, Humor, Short Stories, Fiction

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Jennings served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War. In 1943 his piece "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" was published in Lilliput magazine. Freelance work for Punch and The Spectator soon followed. Leaving the army with the rank of Lieutenant, he briefly worked as a scriptwriter for the Central Office of Information and then spent two years as an advertising copywriter; throughout this period his freelance work continued to be published.

In 1949 he joined The Observer, contributing a fortnightly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966. After leaving The Observer, he continued to write until his death, mainly seeing print in Punch, The Times and the Telegraph magazine.

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a collection of various nonsense writings from a broad period of time. It covers the usual suspects (Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, James Thurber, etc.) and some more recent (Monty Python's Flying Circus, Spike Milligan) and leaves out some (there is an admitted Anglo-American bias, as noted in the introduction, so no Surrealists or Dada) and some interesting obscurities (many newspaper humor writers are included). "Nonsense" is defined as a wide range here, crossing into gentle humor, wordplay, irony and absurdity.

There is a lot to enjoy in this compendium and I suggest those interested check out bookfinder.com to track down a copy. Of particular note:

Robert Benchley's "Down With Pigeons" (a screed against the winged city rat, also echoed later in the volume by James Thurber's "There's An Owl In My Room"); Basil Boothroyd's "Why Dogs Bite Gardeners" (on the foolishness of dogs); Patrick Campbell's "Noulded Into The Shake Of A Goat" (about the dangers of ventriloquism, which should explain the title); Ivor Cutler's "How To Make A Friend" (foolproof instructions on exactly that); H.F. Ellis' "Re: Helicopters" (a man's indignant complaint about being rescued by helicopters far too often); Peter Fleming's "Implications Of An Incinerator" (useful for burning all those contributors copies of books an author gets), A.P. Herbert's "A Criminal Type" (about typography run mad), Stephen Leacock's "A, B & C" (a biography of these perennial schoolbook figures); Barry Pain's "Dukes" & "Babies" (short essays on owning either); some very funny fake advertisements from Monty Python'S Big Red Book; a nice selection from Rudolf Erich Raspe's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; an absolutely charming excerpt from Anthony Robertson's How to Do and Say in England: A Trim Kompaktikum for Students of Englisch Talk and Society Behaviourism, William Kean Seymour's marvelous "Peter Gink" (a savage parody of Sherwood Anderson); N.F. Simpson's "The Best I Can Do By Way Of A Gate-Leg Table Is A Hundredweight Of Coal" (an marvelously absurd teleplay, I wonder if anyone ever produced it?); and some always great James Thurber. A good selection of varied limericks and a really great Ogden Nash poem ("The Wendigo") top it all off.

I could have done without some of the English upper-classman humor (all-knowing, smug parodies of classics) and think the book might have been more interesting in chronological instead of alphabetical order, but there you go. A lot of fun for those who like humorous writing.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a load of nonsense.

Some parts of the book were amusing - such as the definition pages.

There are a few extracts from 'Alice in Wonderland' and reading those has made me interested in reading that and its sequel. It such a random story with crazy events occurring one after the other. The tea party scene is a favourite. The scene with the cook throwing objects at the Duchess and the baby turning into a pig is so crazy that it made me smile.

Not all was well in this book though, I found a lot of it boring and ended up skipping whole sections. Other parts made no sense what so ever and I didn't even attempt to read the rest.

Three stars because of the humour and word play.

[Robin Helweg-Larsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some random interesting bits (Aristophanes, and Sellar and Yeatman), a lot of boring prose (Brahma and god knows what), neither comprehensive (no Mervyn Peake) nor accurate (Kipling's Quebec limerick misquoted, along with much else). Oh well.