Category Archives: humor

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Posted on by
Reply

I fell in love with Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing when I read The Thirteenth Tale. Although I told everone to read it, now I can’t remember what is was about and I still struggle spelling her name. In her latest book, a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, Romantic Comedy starts as a primer on the popular live weekly comedy variety show, Saturday Night Live.

If you have watched SNL, you will recognize the format, and appreciate the behind the scenes tutorial. Sally Milz is a ten year veteran comedy writer for the show, who provides the insider information about fellow writers and staff. The target episode has Noah, a thirty-something handsome singer who is both hosting the show and providing the musical numbers for the show. As handsome as he is, he may be wearing a wig, but this does not stop Sally from making a connection as preparation for the week’s show progresses. Sadly, Sally inadvertently insults him – in a not so funny way – and the burgeoning romance fizzles.

Two years later, enter Covid and Part 2, with Sally and Noah emailing each other. Mel Brooks could not have written better dialogue, and sometimes I felt I was reading one of his parodies, or maybe it was a farce? At any rate, the laughs are subtle and the romance intensifies. With Noah secluded in Los Angeles, with a housekeeper, chef, and trainer, and Sally in Kansas City with her eighty year old step father and his dog, their emails are long and comfortable, revealing past relationships, attitudes, and secrets (most times funny) about themselves. I have been in both LA and Kansas City, and I doubt I would have wanted to spend Covid isolation in either place, but maybe the chef would have helped. They decide to actually talk on the phone, and eventually set up a meeting.

As Part 3 begins, Covid is still in the air, so Sally drives to LA, supplied with protein bars, hand sanitizer, masks, and water. Secluded in the bubble of Noah’s beautiful estate, they finally provide the love scenes – until, predictably, the paparazzi invade their privacy and Sally’s step father’s bout with Covid prompts her return to Kansas.

All ends well, and as with any good romantic comedy, they live happily ever after. A fun romp and timely. This may be the first novel written during Covid that not just acknowledged its impact on lives but also had the characters emerging better for it.

Nora Goes Off Script

Posted on by

Formula romances are the Hallmark of a favorite streaming movie channel, and you may have wondered, as I have, who writes these happy ever after romantic comedies, always ending in a chaste kiss. In Nora Goes Off Script, Annabel Monaghan’s heroine not only writes the scripts, she lives them.

In a comedy that follows the formula, Nora meets the handsome hero, a movie star who decides to stay in her backyard tea house to get a taste of how real people live. Of course, he gets involved with the local school play; they fall in love; he leaves to film another movie. After a surprise misunderstanding is revealed, they all live happily ever after.

To keep it timely, she wins an Oscar for her writing, accepting in her six inch heels.

A fun diversion when you need it – just like watching one of those movies.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Posted on by

Lately, it seems it’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, week, month, and more, but as Judith Viorst would agree, sometimes it is just that way. Reading Peter Baker’s essay in the New Yorker (January 23, 2023) reminded me to look for the humor in those days, even if only looking back at them. The humor always escapes me, as it does Alexander, while in the middle of the muddle.

Judith Viorst’s “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” is celebrating its fiftieth year in print, and it might be time to reread it, maybe before you go to bed tonight. The book is short; the plot is spare; Alexander starts his day with no prize in his cereal, no dessert in his lunchbox, falls in the mud, and is forced to eat lima beans at dinner. More horrors ensue, and in the end, the day ends and he goes to sleep, after the Mickey Mouse night light burns out. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Perhaps you’ve had a few of these lately. I have. You know; those days when you wish you had stayed in bed. But rereading Alexander’s trials made me smile. Not that there is hope that future days will be better; Viorst does not promise that. And, like Alexander, there is not much you can do about it.

Baker notes in his article that after writing about Alexander, “Viorst started a six year study of psychoanalysis, a discipline fundamentally concerned with stories we tell ourselves, and the possibility that revising them might make our terrible days a little less so.” Viorst offers no easy way to deal with such days, saying in the end: “Some days are like that…”

In the meantime, muddling through these days, it might be wise to avoid going to bed with gum in your mouth, a sure sign you will wake up with gum in your hair.

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting

Posted on by

Being a commuter on a local train into the city was not one of the highlights of my career, but after reading Claire Pooley’s Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, I wonder if I may have missed something as I read my book or just dozed all those years, usually in a cramped seat, if I was lucky enough to get one.

Pooley’s character Iona reminds me of Calvin Trillin’s Tepper, available and willing to listen and offer advice when needed. Tepper was sitting in his car, saving his parking spot as he followed the elusive parking rules of New York City streets; Iona rode the commuter train into London. Tepper was usually reading the newspaper, while Iona judiciously observed her fellow passengers, offering her commentary when needed, or solicited.

While Tepper was relatively bland, Iona’s personality screamed out to be noticed, from her loud voice to her colorful clothing, to her companion dog sitting beside her. A cast of characters revolve around Iona’s commute, and like Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip, Iona figuratively hangs out her shingle to them all, changing their lives, and, at the end, changing her own.

From schoolgirl Martha, who overcomes an unfortunate decision promising to ruin her life, to Piers, the business man who has it all, to Sanjay, the nurse quietly comforting his patients, to Emmie, the naive beauty who seems to have found true love, the cast of characters each has a problem only Iona can solve. Pooley cleverly connects her characters’ lives, and adds a few who have practical skills for life improvement – Jake, the owner of a gym, and David, the lawyer.

Pooley’s witty observances carry the reader through familiar trials, and always finds a happy ending. I need happy endings these days, don’t you?

Related Review: Tepper Isn’t going Out – https://thenochargebookbunch.com/tag/tepper-isnt-going-out/

Another book by Claire Pooley: The Authenticity Project – https://thenochargebookbunch.com/2020/10/03/the-authenticity-project/

Tepper Revisited

Posted on by

Sometimes sitting alone in my car, I feel luxuriosly safe when all around me is too chaotic to bear. The car is parked, of course, and no one else is around. I listen to the classical radio station, close my eyes, and just drift. Sometimes I read old New Yorker magazines. Calvin Trillin’s Tepper comes to mind (from “Tepper Isn’t Going Out”); maybe it’s time to reread the book. But it’s on a shelf somewhere else, not here in my car.

I reviewed the book over ten years ago but I can still use it’s lesson in patience, especially now. Here’s my review:

A lesson in patience – that’s what the nurse said about her elderly patient. She will do what she wants, when she wants to – so time would be better spent accepting that idea and just being patient. The patient was teaching everyone around her to be patient – a recent lesson from my personal experience.

Patience in characters is hard to find. Often impatience is the character flaw that moves the story, but one of my favorite characters is Murray Tepper, the personification of patience. Tepper is the invention of Calvin Trillin, satirist who writes for The New Yorker. Trillin once noted that “…Marriage is not merely sharing the fettucini, but sharing the burden of finding the fettucini restaurant in the first place.”

In his book, Tepper Isn’t Going Out, Trillin gives Tepper patience and wisdom, mixed with lots of humor. For anyone who has lived or spent time in New York City, the complementary characters in the book, and the descriptions of New York neighborhoods and politics will make you smile.

Tepper sits in his car, patiently reading his morning paper in the evening, seemingly not bothering anyone. But, sitting patiently in a car becomes a red flag – and not only for those seeking a parking spot. Tepper becomes “the psychiatrist is in” Lucy from Peanuts to some, the guru on the mountaintop to a few, and a source of annoyance to others – as he sits patiently in his car. Even if the innuendo and satire passes over your head, the journey you will take in reading this book is hilarious.

Throughout all the hysterics of others, Tepper stays calm and Trillin brings the book to a calm and logical end. Patience is a virtue hard to acquire, and there are many who are willing to teach us a lesson in forbearance – we meet them everyday through bureaucratic jumbles and personal interactions – and Tepper is one of them.