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A carregar... Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1957)por Max Shulman
A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. A comic romp by Max Shulman, set in a Connecticut commuting village populated with commuting suburbanites, old Yankee settlers and Italians. This is a tumultuous mix that is further unsettled when the Army installs a Nike guided missile base, and comes to a comic climax at the town's Fourth of July celebration. This is a comic gem that I am pretty sure Garrison Keillor must have read and been inspired by; I've read a couple of his novels that follow pretty closely the plot of small-town comic tensions brought to a boil at the town's traditional celebration/parade. This book is also a pretty deft portrayal of contemporary suburbanite mores and archetypes. Shulman also wrote some books I've heard of, including "Barefoot Boy With Cheek", "The Tender Trap", and "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (which led to the early TV series), and I may have to track these down. This was Max Shulman's first "adult" comedy (in that two characters have an affair). It's a warped, intricate plot full of the most specious coincidences. When the military decides to build a Nike missile base near a chic Connecticut commuter town, passions flare, in and out of the bedroom, and then all hell breaks loose! The book laughs at the 50's: the teenagers imitating Brando/ Dean/Elvis, their martini-guzzling parents, the army, suburban families with commuting husbands and volunteering wives, Little League, sex education, television, long-time residents of small towns (aka the Yankees), and a Nashville star/singer in the military. Shulman was a genius at satirizing his own time, but much of the humor is still appropriate today. A movie was made in 1958, (very) loosely based on the book, starring Paul Newman as Harry Bannerman (one of the main characters), real wife Joanne Woodward as Harry’s wife Grace, and Joan Collins as local temptress Angela Hoffa. I haven’t seen it, but based on a synopsis, a lot of characters from the book are left out and the plot has major changes. Read the book instead (there’s an excerpt in this post). sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
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New York Times Bestseller: The US Army invades a small Connecticut town in this Cold War comedy classic. Harry Bannerman drinks his nightly bourbon on the train from New York City to Putnam's Landing, Connecticut. A typical commuter, he has a bald spot, a house, two mortgages, three children, and a wife who is a committed soccer mom and pillar of the community. Harry just wants to curl up on the couch with Grace when he gets home, but instead faces an endless round of PTA meetings, political rallies, little league games, and amateur theatricals. Second Lt. Guido di Maggio loves baseball less than his last name implies and his fiancée, Maggie Larkin, more than the army allows. College sweethearts, the couple has their future all mapped out: Guido will complete his military service in Maryland while Maggie starts her teaching career in Putnam's Landing, a five-hour train ride away. But when Guido is reassigned to Alaska and Maggie loses her job for giving a sex talk to second graders, their plans go up in smoke. To avoid Alaska and save his relationship with Maggie, Guido takes the thankless job directing public relations at a new anti-aircraft base in Putnam's Landing. What happens next in this national bestseller is a dark and funny story of the disaffected and disconnected in Cold War suburbia as tensions mount between the "invading" army ("invading" Connecticut, that is) and a bevy of local teenagers; between frustrated commuters and their frustrated wives; between social do-gooders and Yankee conservatives; and between romantic dreams of the artist's life in New York and the pedestrian reality of having to earn a living to house and feed a growing family. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)813.608334Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Shulman (who I have learned also wrote The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which the classic TV show was based on), skewers the fictional Connecticut town of Putnam's Landing, which in the post-World War II era is transitioning from flinty Yankee village to bedroom commuter for New York City commuters. He spares none of the groups that make up the social strata of the town: the old-money original residents and their variously sullen and perky offspring, the flood of Italian immigrants who make up the working and service class, and the hopelessly suburban commuters. The three groups come together in spectacular fashion to do battle at the annual Fourth of July festivities with a fourth set of interlopers: soldiers who populate a new missile base in town.
I liked least the sexist humor about husbands being helpless to resist their wives' demands. The ethnic humor didn't seem particularly offensive to me, since I grew up in an Italian family not far away either in distance or time that would have fit in perfectly among the Italians of Putnam's Landing. Shulman is even-handed in his ridicule, with every group coming in for their fair share of digs, which keeps any of it from feeling like punching down.
I'm glad I re-read this, and I look forward to reading Liz's thoughts someday. While it didn't seem quite as hilariously transgressive as I remember it from my childhood, there were still some laugh-out-loud bits that made it worth the time. ( )