Book Review: Mere Anarchy
Bill Ruehlmann - Virginian-Pilot
Aug 15, 2008
Mark Twain once said the worst introduction he ever received was: "Now here is a man who is really funny."
It raised expectations.
So I worry a bit about beginning this account by saying, "Now here is a book that is really funny." But I don't worry enough to come up with anything else.
Because Woody Allen wrote the book, a collection of his more recent short stuff from The New Yorker and The New York Times, called "Mere Anarchy."
And Allen, like Twain, is famous for funny. He's famous for other things, too, but let it go. In every life, you have to wait for the laugh.
Comedy is tragedy plus time.
And Allen is Hamlet in SoHo. Remember the Al Capp character Joe Btfsplk (pronounced like a raspberry), who stalked the Earth under an individual dark cloud? Allen is Btfsplk with an advanced degree.
He hurts. We laugh. Fun is somebody else's trouble.
Take "Tandoori Ransom," in which a stand-in for a movie star is kidnapped by bandits in India. They think he's the star, of course. The film company's response is to relocate with alacrity:
"Word was that (producer) Hal Roachpaste had not wanted to bother the Indian government with a complaint but had vowed as he blew town to do all in his power to free me short of paying a cent in ransom, which he felt would set an awkward precedent."
Our hero eventually escapes - to another profession.
Or take "Sam, You Made the Pants Too Fragrant," in which the poetry editor of "Dry Heaves: A Journal of Opinion" encounters a pal who drinks water from a straw through the lining of his suit. It's a natty new way to stay hydrated.
He seeks out the tailor, who is also adept at providing suits that smell:
"We can imbue your raiments with any fragrance from patchouli to twice-cooked pork."
He very nearly acquires a garment that will automatically recharge his cell phone but, less conveniently, will also electrocute him in the process.
The point is that these are riffs on things that actually happened, suggested of course within the news pages of the Times.
Allen sees human endeavor - even beyond Manhattan - as basically doomed and essentially absurd. As a filmmaker he knows it's all in the angle of the camera, which, for him, is usually subjective: Everyslob going down for the third time. The title of his book comes from William Butler Yeats' "Second Coming":
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. ...
In other words, entropy sucks. We as readers take on the perspective of The Thinker with Botox. Our roller coaster may end at a brick wall, but what a ride.
Like the narrator of "To Err Is Human - To Float, Divine." The victim of endless junk mail on spiritual energy succumbs to an avatar named Galaxie Sunstroke, who at length enables him to achieve actual physical levitation.
Terrific, but:
"It was at this moment I began to realize I couldn't get down. ..."
Now, there is a man who is really funny.
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