“Biography By Inches” (E46)

Originally printed: The Bookman, June 1925
First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
Original Byline: Robert Benchley (with sketches by Herb Roth)

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Comments:
Drawing fractured inspiration from Amy Lowell’s posthumously published 1,200 page long literary biography John Keats, Benchley admits that he has neither the time nor the particular genius that powered his late contemporary through her subject’s short life at the rate of 48 pages per annum. He pays homage to Lowell’s extrapolatorily encyclopedic method by executing a series of narrow deep dives into the stream of Victorian poet William Bodney’s consciousness. In 1925, Lowell’s book was making waves among critics, who disagreed sharply upon the merits and advisability of her approach, and Benchley would almost certainly have elicited similar responses from his own readers, if William Bodney had been a real person.

Given the special circumstances, RB tackles the fragmentary relics of Bodney’s imagined existence with even more confidence and gusto than Lowell had shown in teasing out her thick descriptions of a thinly documented life. Having made up his primary research materials in the first place, Benchley presses this advantage to provide maximum insight into the workings of the artist’s putative mind, whilst judiciously leaving some room for interpretation when confronting multivalent passages such as the reference to “open fires” in Bodney’s I wonder when, if I should go, there’d be.

Here, your humble annotater begs your leave to return to this entry in the future – once he has read Lowell’s John Keats (which, as I’m sure you can imagine, may take a while – but his curiosity is piqued).

Favourite Moment:
Of the boyhood of William Bodney we know but little. He was brought up as most of the boys in Suffix were brought up, except for the fact that he did not go out of doors until he was eleven, and then only to strike at the postman. He was kept in the house so much because of an old prejudice of Edna Bodney’s against fireflies.

Reprint Notes:

Herb Roth sketches not reprinted.
No Gluyas Williams illustrations for this one.
The opening preamble, which makes specific reference to Amy Lowell’s John Keats, has been excised – and once again this does damage the piece a little.
Parenthetical subtitle has been added: (Such as has recently been done for John Keats)

“The Big Bridegroom Revolt: All Honor to Hershey, The Emancipator” (E43)

Originally printed: DAC News, June 1925
First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley (Drawings by Rea Irvin)

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Comments:
Benchley’s writing falls flattest when it slides too stridently into sync with the sloganeering subjectivity of the scared suburban sovereigns he specialized in situating down to size (see also E32). Here, RCB presents himself as a future cultural historian exploring the origins of the “Male Liberation” movement, ignited by that Bartleby of the Bridegrooms, Arthur Hershey, whose preference not to put himself out whilst tying the knot became the “not” heard ‘round the world (or, at the very least, ‘round the men’s club).

The piece’s ghastliest missteps involve the repeated analogy drawn between slavery and male acquiescence to women’s wedding plans. Every reference to betrothed men held in bondage boosts bile production in the modern reader, and ought to have elicited even more extreme effects in 1925, with the eradication of actual chattel slavery having taken place within living memory. Yes, by likening Hershey’s refusal to address envelopes or make himself ridiculous in a place of worship to an act of world historical rebellion, Benchley is drawing attention to a histrionic streak in his husbands-to-be, but that aspect of the critique is sadly diluted by the delight the author himself appears to be taking in these fantasies of flouting bourgeois nuptial norms. So much delight, in fact, that he has forgotten the reader’s own right to enjoy (or, at the very least, chuckle slightly at) these passages.

For me, this essay is saved from the ignominy of a 1 Owl rating by its pointed traipsing into the fragile ego-scapes of his affianced freedom fighters. Sensing every other-directed step toward the altar as another faux-pas down the slippery slope to a genuine reckoning for patriarchy, these men do exhibit a hair-trigger (and potentially homicidal) sensitivity to any challenge to their utterly unearned social privilege. In these moments lie the lineaments of a far, far more interesting essay than the one we find in the pages of Detroit Athletic Club News. How much more tragic, then, that the excisions made for Pluck and Luck take the piece in the opposite direction – reducing it to (hopefully, anyway) the smuggest rehearsal of battle of the sexes banalities in the Benchley canon.

Favourite Moment:
Then there was the ordeal of the ring, the cracking of the voice in the responses, the itch in the middle of the back during the ceremony and, finally, the ghastly march down the aisle on the bride’s arm (technically the bridge was on his arm, but that fooled no one) under the searching stare of hundred of curious women, all pitying the bride and wondering what on earth she saw in him.

Reprint Notes:

Original drawings replaced by a Gluyas Williams illustration.
Severely shortened in Pluck and Luck, with several entire paragraphs excised – see comment above.

“‘Bicycling’, The New Craze” (E42)

Originally printed: DAC News, April 1925
First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley (Drawings by Rea Irvin)

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Comments:
Here RCB adopts the persona of a trend watcher and lifestyle columnist intent on selling bicycling as the latest fad amongst America’s favoured classes. He does a thorough job of it, providing a deadpan etymological breakdown of the 50-year old word, delving into the trial and error process of its development by inventor Philip G. Bicycle, and even advising early adopters on the best way to fall off their ultra-modern contraptions.

Examining his subject along lines suggested by the “baseball is a game of inches” school of sports writing, Benchley tells us that old Philip G. tossed his prototype aside when he realized that “there won’t be enough people in our world who can stretch their legs out from one to four feet to make any decent kind of sale for my machine at all!” Temporarily soured on practical mechanics, Bicycle went off and invented the apple instead. But he never completely abandoned his first love (if he had, America’s favourite desert would be known as Bicycle Pie). At last, a vision of pedals situated a leg’s length away from the seat flashed into his mind, and the thing came together very quickly as a status symbol among the rich at play in Newport, Rhode Island. Some of them are even managing to make it move forward! Soon, all major mergers and distribution contracts will be negotiated by executives hunched over their handlebars. If you want to make your way in this world, better give bicycling a tumble!

Favourite Moment:
That is one thing about riding a bicycle. You can’t stand still once you are seated and ready to go. There are three ways for you to go – forward, over to the right, or over to the left. Let us say that at first you go over to the right side. This is the most popular side for beginners, as it carries out the arc begun by the process of mounting. Once you have fallen over to the right side, try the left.

Reprint Notes:

Original drawings replaced by a Gluyas Williams illustration.
Reference to Rea Irvin’s Figure 2 (of the falling rider) is removed, as there is only one Figure in the book.

“Ask That Man” (E26)

Originally printed: Life Magazine, May 17, 1923
First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley

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Comments:
Prime sitcom Benchley, with the author interrogating not “that man” at the train station or driving the bus, but rather “that man” (along with “that woman”) defined by middle class gender norms. Writing in the soon-to-be-familiar persona of the wily but inept TV dad, RCB takes us on a candidly fearful and self-loathing tour of that impossible subject position (by way of Central America). The heterosexual union Benchley describes is a nerve-wracking thing powered by constant friction between “masculine competence” (or the illusion of it) and “feminine skepticism” (a necessary corollary of the illusion). Taking us into his confidence about his own lack of self-confidence, he admits that he cannot abide being urged to consult an outside authority for instructions, directions, or any other guidance. It is not the asking that threatens his “manhood”. This guy has very little idea where he is going, and he doesn’t mind if we know it. What gets him down is the insinuation, coming from inside the connubial cortex, that he must go to a rival male for answers.

Our vexed speaker goes to great and costly lengths to preserve his patriarchal prerogative in this tale. Fittingly, the trick isn’t done by performing any real or dissembled feats of omniscience. The ideal, eternally frustrated, quality of maleness under this demented dispensation has nothing to do with being “right” about anything. It’s about the freedom from being questioned at all. Of course, by the binary logic of the system, this cherished aim can never achieve total actualization, despite all of the cultural, social, and legal supports furnished by patriarchy, since the supposedly eternal “feminine” role always contains at least a streak of doubt in its subservience. So it isn’t a question of impressing Doris – the Benchley persona sticks it to “that man” by undercutting his wife’s “natural” faith in every exogamous representative of the gender.

Favourite Moment:
“In Chicago, I again falsified what ‘the man’ told me, and instead of getting on the train back to New York, we went to Little Rock, Arkansas. Every time I had to ask where the best hotel was, I made up information which brought us out into the suburbs, cold and hungry.”

Reprint Notes:

All text reproduced faithfully (for a change!) in Pluck and Luck
The Gluyas Williams cartoons (first appearing in the book) do add significantly to the piece.

“Advice To Investors” (E5)

Originally printed: DAC News (unknown date – presumably 1924/1925)
First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley

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Commentary:
Absolutely inspired nonsense from Benchley, drawing nitrous oxide suffused breath from the basic babblings of the business page. Diligent research has now (and I mean just now!) disclosed that the piece first appeared (under a different title) in an as-yet-unknown issue of that Executive’s Delight, the Detroit Athletic Club News, which just makes me love it all the more. Who said America’s Capitalist Leaders don’t have a sense of humour about their role in the nation’s affairs? We can be pretty sure of our rough date for the article, at least, thanks to its speculative engagement with the true meaning of the 1924 Presidential Election (it had none). Boom and bust a gut economics at its finest!

Favourite moment:
“Europe’s plight has not been without its influence either. Europe’s plight is never without its significance. No matter what you are figuring on doing, you must count on Europe’s plight to furnish at least fifty percent of the significance and ten percent of the gross.”

Reprint Note:

Originally appeared in the DAC News under the title “Our Monthly Market Letter”
Gordon E. Ernst, Jr.’s Annotated Bibliography lists the essay under the reprinted title, as the original could not be identified using the resources available in 1995