Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis
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Book Reviews of Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade
Book Review: Permanence At Rest And Motion
Summary: 4 Stars
Auntie Mame is proteus but within the whirling kaleidoscope of changes is an essential core. She is as sophisticated as Paris and as simple as the fields of Nebraska. She'd be an infuriating goddess to worship because she would laugh at the worship. Her energy is neither creative or destructive. It's a matter of the kind of motion that illuminates by charm. Her love would be disastrous if she was one of Shakespeare's characters but she isn't. She's an American original, a note of real Americana; a flashing off of the spark of the True America denied and fear by heavy fundamentalists in religion, politics, and art. She is wit itself because she knows how to retire. She might have committed enough sins to damn any other human being but she wont ever be damned because of her invincible ignorance - a facet of her compassionate id. Auntie Mame is like Bugs Bunny - that other creature too anarchical to be an anarchist. Auntie Mame knows no super-ego. She does not quest for freedom because she already is free.Book Review: A humor classic
Summary: 4 Stars
This book and the character "Auntie Mame" changed forever how we looked at older women. In the '50's we were dealing with prejudice and "eastern classism".
This book tells us it is the answer to those
while entrenching the eastern snob even further?
A rich east coast prep schooler tells us about his strange upbringing by his maiden aunt. His trustee is made out to be a bore while doing a very good job of making sure he gets his money and goes to the best school.
As much as a comedy classic as this is, I can't endorse
the "givens" that Patrick Dennis builds in.
Much like 19th century English novels
there is a subtext that places the attitudes here
in the era they came from.
Book Review: A Wild Ride
Summary: 4 Stars
Patrick Dennis had a knack for hilarity. His language was simple and purely jovial. Each chapter was a short story relating Auntie Mame's uncultivated adventure. Auntie Mame was a character that possessed great aptitude of playing totally different parts. She could be sophisticated or downright rude, mawkish or absolutely stern, malicious or wholesomely demure, depending on the situation at hand. The book doesn't need to be read from start to finish. One could pick a chapter to enjoy and would certainly get the gist of Auntie Mame's eccentricity. To read the entire volume is to take pleasure in Patrick Dennis' buoyant creativity. It is fast and entertaining.Book Review: A nice little book
Summary: 4 Stars
I find this a nice little book, one that you will not regret reading, but I would not heal it as high-end literature or a true classic.
It is in the sense that it still has relevance today, I enjoyed the stories and wanted to find out what would happen to the main characters next, isn't that what it is all about?
It is more a collection of stories than a true novel as indeed it is explained in the afterword (or the edition I read) the editors who finally agreed to publish it thought up a plot to make the book flow better and tie the different episodes together.
Makes funny and light reading.
Book Review: Old money can be fun too
Summary: 4 Stars
Patrick Dennis, not Nabakov, but never a dull moment. All of his books have cruel depictions of all those types of people we love to hate, and watching the train-wrecks of their ambitious lives are never unraveled with more hilarity. Even the children are evil and wonderful, except little Patrick, of course.