The Bookshelf

Some people don't like Benchley. But then some people don't like Coca-Cola, baseball games, or the Old Howard. Benchley's stock in trade is undiluted humor -- sometimes tempered with sophistication, cynicism, or satire, but invariably funny as hell. No one knows precisely what makes people laugh. Benchley's theory is that "all laughter is merely a compensatory reflex action to take the place of sneezing." If this is true, Benchley must be an awful pain in the neck for the manufacturers of Kleenex, a product which would have alarmingly small sales among the devotees of "Sly Old Bob"--as Benchley coyly refers to himself.

If, up to here, this reads more like the inside of a jacket cover than a book review--take heart. The book is not entirely flawless. For one thing, it is too short. Then perhaps, you're one of those who don't like "S.O.B." However, it is difficult to conceive that some part of "Benchley--or Else!" should fail to find the funny bone of any reader. It is a collection of 71 short articles, some of which appeared in print almost two decades ago, and it covers a vast expanse of human experience--pigeons, hiccoughs, botany exams, poker, bisons, thunderstorms, truffle poisoning, colds, culture, love in Hollywood, phobias, Schistosomiasis, etc., ad infinitum.

The "piece de resistance" is "My Untold Story," which is the intimate and revealing account of Benchley's attempts and failures to become contaminated by the sordid world of sin, sex, and Scotch. Fresh from a college "notorious for its high living"--remember this is Benchley's story and things have changed since then--he tried desperately to besmirch his unsullied life in such dens of vice as Broadway, Hollywood, and Paris. According to his report he remained disgustingly pure. But one wonders. Benchley could hardly have acquired his knowledge of the finer points of life by reading "Colliers" over an ice cream soda at the Y.M.C.A.