Human Being

by Christopher Morley

First edition. New York businessman Richard Roe has recently made himself a candidate for biographical treatment by dropping dead on a ferryboat, and Hubbard, who once sat at a table with Roe without being introduced, however and has recently realized that if he ever means to do something significant, he'd best get started, decides to write a book, even though books don't really interest him a biography of Roe, in fact, in which perhaps "the fatal germ of human identity might be isolated" p.21 . Not that it would be easy to trace "the footprints of one who trod so lightly and with such complete ignorance of his own possible importance ..." pp.7-8 . At least Hubbard knows where to at the end. "This long and many-mooded story...tells how the biographer explored the Life and Times Good Times and Bad of Richard Roe, the Unknown Citizen" dust jacket . Minor jacket wear. xii, 350 pages. and Co., 1932, small 8vo., cloth, dust jacket..

Genres: Fiction

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

American writer Christopher Darlington Morley founded the Saturday Review, from 1924 to 1940 edited it, and prolifically, most notably authored popular novels.

Christopher Morley, a journalist, essayist, and poet, also produced on stage for a few years and gave college lectures.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I was intrigued by the cover. It had a dated look that my wife described as something "that clearly could not be marketed in this day and age, except maybe in an arty McSweeneys type of way." After finishing the book, I can say that it does have a style that harkens to a different era, like maybe some old movie that's very well done, but something about its style leads one away from truly empathizing with the characters. What I loved about the book is its effort a modern Everyman story. Though the Everyman was a successful business man with a corner office in the Flatiron Building, he was flawed and we still sometimes feel above him in human emotional development. Another fascinating thing about parts of the book are the parallels to our current time period. The book takes place before and around the time of the depression, so it has all these descriptions that could be lifted and put into a current story line and you would never know it was seventy years old.

All in all, it's a good book. I don't know who I would recommend it to, as it's not really a humdinger of a book, but it is good and if a copy comes your way, give it a look.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4.5. This novel does a great deal with very little. It's funny and touching and always surprising. Its only fault, I suppose, is that it gets a little maudlin toward the end, love and all that. It's a continuation of Morley's fascination with the little-known parts of the publishing world; here, it's the story of a sales rep. I seriously considered reprinting it.

[Ted Prokash · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excerpt: (Peke is a dog, by the way.) "Peke's basket, trimmed with a blue satin bow for masculinity, was in the inward corner of the living room, in front of the electric hearth. A pulsating glow among glass nuggets was as pretty as the boreal aurora and equally cold. But it appealed to Peke and soothed his midget irritability. It cast a pleasant shimmer on the blue ribbon and perhaps consoled the futility of his useless maleness. That was his corner, and few of this world's harassed inhabitants have such undisputed tenure."

I really vacillated on this book. For a while I loved it. Then Morely tried to add an element of sexuality. That failed miserably. His female characters employed in this line are embarrassingly cliche. Then old Chris introduces some intrigue involving adultery and familial blackmail that has perfectly good characters talking in cringe-inducing dimestore detective novel-slang. By the end, a book that had the promise of profundity devolves into something . . . inconsequential.

I found this book indicative of so much western literature of the period ('20s and '30s). There's lots of good prose, quaint observations, a sort of easy, self-deprecating insightfulness. (See the sublime excerpt included above.) But too often the author's boarding school, bourgeoisie pedigree shines through. Truly it was the era of white people problems. The great ones of the period seemed to have an inkling of their class's pending doom - Fitzgerald, for instance. Chris Morely, not so much. He strikes me as a good writer, but too comfortable to get into anything threatening. I admit I have a bit of a weakness for this stuff. By now it's like watching Seinfeld reruns: It's entertaining, but you know you're not in for any revelations.

[Jeanette Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book at the local library-because of it's old cloth re-covering and yellowed pages. I like this feel in a book. The story was of past ages but like current days. The characters experience current day tribulations. A good story like a good movie-to the end. I recommend this book to those who like old pleasant stories of basic human beings.