Splendid Lunacy
THE New Yorker's is a style that can quickly become a bore when used for its own sake. But in the work of S. J. Perelman it glitters for all it's worth, and that can be quite a lot. All but three of the pieces in Bite on the Bullet first appeared in the New Yorker. There is a certain amount of repetition, especially in a series called 'Cloudland Revisited,' about the weepy films of the writer's youth which, seen again, make him rush to the nearest vomitorium: the formula is used ten times, which is about eight times too many. Yet he is a top-flight professional funny-man and though the themes are often old, he nearly always triumphs over the limitations he sets himself. Even the most obviously pot-boiling articles usually have some- thing of his splendid lunacy. 'To kiss anyone else,' exclaims one of his heroines in a moment of passionate melodrama, 'is like a moustache without salt.' Only at times does the style seem to overpower the intensely individual man; the New Yorker gets him down.
JULIAN MITCHELL
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