A thorough compendium of Charlie Chan quotations.
Armagno compiles quotes from the controversial detective in this debut work of cultural criticism.
In less than a decade, from 1925 through the early 1930s, Earl Derr Biggers wrote six novels whose main character, Chinese-Hawaiian detective Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police Department, became a cultural mainstay for more than half a century. Those half-dozen books have spawned more than 40 Chan movies, a BBC television series, multiple radio plays, a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip, and even a Milton Bradley board game. Chan was, postulates the author (a 40-year Air Force veteran who lived for a time in Honolulu), “arguably as popular a fictional icon as Mickey Mouse and Superman!” He is also among the most controversial figures of 20th century pop culture, an Asian character created by a white author and portrayed on film by white actors using insulting pseudo-Chinese accents and garbled English grammar. Seeking to “differentiate the ‘literature’ from the antics of Hollywood film,” Armagno argues that the original novels eschewed stereotypes and portrayed “the Chinese as a wise, intelligent, people and nation.” To this end, the author has meticulously compiled examples of Chan’s defining characteristic—his use of relevant, pithy aphorisms—into this anthology of wit and sagacity. Divided into three parts, the book begins with almost 200 aphorisms divided by the Biggers’ book in which they are found. More aphorisms are organized by topic in Part II, covering subjects including death, fate, beauty, and patience (“In time,” Chan reminds us, “the grass becomes milk”). The book’s final chapters are an eclectic collection of short essays, drawings and illustrations of Chan, and random aphorisms that didn’t make the cut for the first two parts. Armagno also includes an introduction by Biggers biographer Barbara Gregorich, a bibliography on all things Chan, and an encyclopedic index of Chan’s appearances in books, films, and other media. Some readers may not be convinced by the alleged racial benevolence of Biggers’ original novels, though Armagno makes a convincing case on the differences between the Chan in print versus film.
A thorough compendium of Charlie Chan quotations.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1667894270
Page Count: 112
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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