S. J. Perelman
| S. J. Perelman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sidney Joseph Perelman February 1, 1904 Brooklyn, New York |
| Died | October 17, 1979 (aged 75) New York, New York |
| Occupation | Author, screenwriter |
| Spouse | Laura West |
Sidney Joseph "S. J." Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) was an American humorist and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker. He also wrote for several other magazines, including Judge, as well as books, scripts, and screenplays. Perelman received an Academy Award for screenwriting in 1956.
Perelman wrote many brief, humorous descriptions of his travels for various magazines, and of his travails on his Pennsylvania farm, all of which were collected into books. (A few were illustrated by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who accompanied Perelman on the round-the-world trip recounted in Westward Ha!)
Perelman is highly regarded for his humorous short pieces that he published in magazines in the 1930s and 1940s, most often in The New Yorker. For these, he is considered the first surrealist humor writer of the United States. In these numerous brief sketches he pioneered a new style that was unique to him, using parody to "wring every drop of false feeling or slovenly thinking."
They were infused with a sense of ridicule, irony, and wryness and frequently used his own misadventures as their theme. Perelman chose to describe these pieces as feuilletons — a French literary term meaning "literary or scientific articles; serial stories" (literally "little leaves") — and he defined himself as a feuilletoniste. Perelman's only attempt at a conventional novel (Parlor, Bedlam and Bath, written in collaboration with Q J Reynolds) was unsuccessful, and throughout his life he was resentful that authors who wrote in the full-length form of novels received more literary respect (and financial success) than short-form authors like himself even as he openly admired British humorist P.G. Wodehouse. While many believe Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge to be a novel, it is actually his first collection of humorous pieces, many written while he was still a student at Brown. It is largely considered juvenilia [citation needed] and its pieces were never included in future Perelman collections.
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