Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Paperback 892: Dark Laughter / Sherwood Anderson (Pocket Books 878)

Paperbacks 892: Pocket Books 878 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dark Laughter
Author: Sherwood Anderson
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Estimated value: $15-20

PB878-1
Best things about this cover:

  • Her expression is somehow both lascivious and bored. It says "You … sure, you'll do."
  • Maybe if you angle your boobs toward him just a little bit more, Lady Chatterley, he'll get the hint.
  • The husband … is one of my favorite cover elements of all time. Without him, you've got a pretty typical paperback cover. With him, and his ham-sized pate and his spectacles and his "can't talk, reading" and his vibrant, shlubby boredom, this cover skyrockets to comedy. "What? Sure, fuck him, don't fuck him, whatever. I gotta check my stocks…"
  • Reader Michael 5000 sent me this book. Since I hardly ever check my mail at school, I didn't discover this book until very recently. I had, very, very weirdly and coincidentally, checked out Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio that same week. Anyway, Michael sent along a nifty postcard with its own spot-on commentary:



And the back cover:

PB878bc

Best things about this back cover:

  • Who wrote that tagline, Douglas Sirk?
  • Not "love as few men have ever loved," but "love as few men ever have time to love"—like that's the issue. "Damn my 6pm squash game! I could be LOVING right now, but nooooo…"
  • "… when she saw Bruce Dudley  she knew physical desire for the first time." Uh … I challenge. That is simply not a plausible statement.


Page 123~

Being in Rose's apartment that night was, for all the people who had been there, a good deal like walking into a bedroom in which a woman lies naked. They had all felt that.

I really, really wish I … knew what the hell this meant.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

1 comment:

Michael5000 said...

Woo hoo! He used it! He used it!