Casual
_Casual L*E*O R*O*S*T*E*N, RIP Leo Rosten and Deng Xiaoping died last Wednesday. Rosten was four years younger than Deng, and a lot funnier. He was famous for The Joys of Yiddish, and well known...
...Itsa have beautiful wordsa, bella, lak great musica anda deepa, deepa philosophy...
...Kaplan demonstrated Caesar's exact ocular process by closing his own 'ice'—'an' drops dad!' " Of course, Mr...
...But for me, Leo Rosten will always be the creator of Hyman Kaplan—that is, of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N...
...Life...
...Admittedly, I'm an easy touch for a certain kind of comic writing (I tend to believe that Donald E. Westlake is America's greatest living novelist...
...But I've got to think that any American who shares my somewhat juvenile sense of humor—and, after all, many Americans do—would love to meet Hyman Kaplan...
...For he saw that there should be something peculiarly cheerful and upbeat about American patriotism, about the spirit of a nation of immigrants, founded in liberty...
...Parkhill put in...
...After (yet again) correcting Kaplan's pronunciation, Mr...
...William Kristql...
...He would have cheered David Brooks's call in this issue for a return to national greatness...
...Parkhill's objections, Kaplan continues his gripping explication de texte of the monologue: " 'Life is like a bum actor, strottink an' hollerink arond de stage for vun hour bafore he's kicked ot...
...Deng Xiaoping wouldn't have understood...
...Life is monkey business...
...Kaplan...
...It's a pail full of idjots.' "'No, no...
...After further heated exchanges between other students and Kaplan, who has made himself Shakespeare's great defender, Mr...
...He explains that in this monologue an anxious Caesar is thinking: "'Oh, how de time goes slow, fromm day to day, like leetle tsylla-bles on phonograph racords of time.'" Overriding Mr...
...I came across him as a teenager in the 1960s because my parents happened to have around the house a couple of collections of the stories— The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (published in 1937) and The Return ofH*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1959...
...Shakesbeer you compare mit Dante...
...Kaplan is thrilled: "Must be some progriss ve makink...
...He asks the students to recite the poem and explain it...
...I reread the stories this week after learning of Rosten's death, and found myself laughing out loud 30 years later...
...Parkhill writes on the board the famous "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" passage from Macbeth...
...But like Mr...
...Then Kaplan finally gets to declaim: " 'Fallow lovers of fine literature...
...And he knew that American humor is part of American greatness...
...Pock-heel"), decides to introduce his students to "the greatest master English has ever known," William Shakespeare...
...Parkhill feels increasingly dizzy and despairing...
...Here's a sample from one story, "The Death of Julius Caesar...
...The Kaplan books were favorites of my early adolescence...
...Shakespeare isa lak Alighieri Dante, da greatest Ital-iano—' "'Vhat?!' bristled Mr...
...Edmirers of immortable poyetry.' " 'Immortal,' Mr...
...Parkhill has to tell Kaplan that the monologue isn't from Julius Caesar...
...Shakesbeer...
...Miss Cara-vello goes first: "'Da poem isa gooda...
...A "tale" not a "pail"—' " '—full of funny sonds an' phooey!' "'Sound and fury!' cried the frantic tutor...
...And to enjoy the Kaplan stories, it probably helps to have had immigrant grandparents, and to have been raised in New York...
...I had graduated from Clair Bee's terrific Chip Hilton sports series, and had not yet embraced Allen Drury's gripping political novels...
...Imachine...
...The long-suffering teacher of Kaplan's night-school class, Mr...
...But Kaplan retorts: "How ken she compare a ginius like Shakesbeer mit a dantist like Dante...
...Leo Rosten loved Hyman Kaplan and his fellow Americanizing immigrants...
...Ha!'" Mr...
...He was famous for The Joys of Yiddish, and well known for several other works of fiction and nonfic-tion...
...Villiam Jakes-beer...
...He loved America...
...It singleflies not-tink!' . . . Den Julius closes his ice fest'—Mr...
...Parkhill (known to Kaplan as "Mr...
...Rosten's Kaplan first appeared in the pages of the New Yorker in 1935...
...Parkhill defends Miss Cara-vello's right to her opinion...
...Parkhill, I've never been able to read Act V of Macbeth without for a moment imagining myself in a tent outside Rome, "where 'Julius Scissor,' cursed with insomnia, had pondered time and life, and philosophized himself to a strange and sudden death...
...It don't minn a t'ing...
...Kaplan was a Depression-era immigrant, a night-school student who mangled the English language and chose to sign his name in capital letters separated by asterisks...
...After various corrections and diversions, Kaplan gets to the point, with an interpretation of "dose marvelous words" of "Julius Scissor...
Vol. 2 • March 1997 • No. 24
