HILARIOUS COMEDY
Serwer, Arnold
Hilarious Comedy BARNABY, by Crockett Johnson. Henry Holt. $2. Reviewed by Arnold Serwer AND THEN there is the one about the woman who came into the psychiatrist's office, leading an ostrich on a...
...It's my husband...
...They do not believe there is a Mr...
...He is the most bumptious bungler of our time...
...Those of us who have followed the O'Malley's adventures in PM, before Crockett Johnson put him in a book, know how real he is in spite of the failure of grownups to see him...
...There is more O'Malley in us than we like to admit, and I think it is worth the price of the book to find that out...
...O'Malley, Barnaby's fairy godfather, the little man with the pink wings...
...Oh, it isn't me, doctor," the woman said...
...O'Malley and Barnaby in a book afford not only hilarious comedy, but also penetrating criticism of those of us who take ourselves too seriously...
...Reviewed by Arnold Serwer AND THEN there is the one about the woman who came into the psychiatrist's office, leading an ostrich on a leash...
...He thinks he's an ostrich...
...Barnaby and all other children, also dogs, ghosts, and leprechauns accept him as a matter of course...
...The psychiatrist asked, "What's your trouble, Madam...
...He is anything but supernatural...
...In fact, far from passing a miracle, O'Malley can barely manage to pass a manhole without falling into it...
...If there is a connection between this story and the behavior of the characters in Crockett Johnson's Barn-aby (and I have been determined to find one ever since first hearing about that ostrich), it must be that like the lady who led in the ostrich, the adults in Barnaby refuse to believe in the existence of something we can all see...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 46
