I have been reading this book called the "Fireside Book of Dog Stories" (more on that in a separate post later) that was compiled in 1942 or 52, it must have been 52 no-one was compiling fireside books during the war.

Anyways, two or three of the stories in that book are by James Thurber and E.B White.

Anglophone young'uns will recognize the second author. He wrote Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and the Trumpet of the Swan, among other classic stories. Thurber is known for his cartooning and humour writing in the New Yorker.

I have such a profound admiration for these two writers. They are witty and critical, and what's surprising to a reader of contemporary satire, they are not profoundly negative.

So today, as a reward for buying a piece of clothing that causes me to sing Otto Titsling under my breath involuntarily, I treated myself to some books at the Westmount Library book sale. At the book sale, (and this is why book sales are fun, because you find the weirdest stuff) I found a little book called "Is Sex Necessary" written by none other then my two men of the hour J Thurber and E.B White, in 1929 no less.

In the introduction the authors explain that;

"During the past year two factors in our civilization have been greatly overemphasized. One is aviation, the other is sex. Looked at calmly, neither diversion is entitled to the space it has been accorded. Each has been deliberately promoted...(Skipping bit on flight). The problem in this case, was to make sex seem more complex and dangerous. This task was taken up by sociologists, analysts, gynecologists, psychologists, and authors; they approached it with a good deal of scientific knowledge and an immense zeal. They joined forces and made the whole matter of sex complicated beyond the wildest dreams of our fathers. The country became flooded with books. Sex which had hitherto been a physical expression, became largely mental. The whole order of things changed. To prepare for marriage, young girls no longer assembled a hope chest - they read books on abnormal psychology. If they finally did marry, they found themselves with a large number of sex books on hand, but almost no pretty underwear. Most of them luckily, never married at all - they just continued to read."

"Our method was the opposite of that used by other writes on sex; we saw clearly in what respect they failed, and we profited by their example. We saw, chiefly, that these writers expended their entire emotional energy in their writing and never had time for anything else. The great length of their books testified to their absorption with the sheer business of writing. They clearly hadn't been out much. They had been at home writing; and meanwhile what was sex doing? Not standing still you better believe. Se we determined that our procedure would be to approach sex bravely, and frequently. " Approach the subject in a lively spirit," we told ourselves, "and the writing will take care of itself. ... We gathered about us a host of congenial people of all types, mostly girls. Gay somber, petulant, all kinds..."

And from the preface

Men and Women have always sought, by one means and another, to be together rather than apart. At first they were together by the simple expedient of being unicellular, and there was no conflict. Later the cell separated, or began living apart, for reasons which are not clear even today, although there is considerable talk. Almost immediately the two halves of the original cell began experiencing a desire to unite again - usually with a half of some other cell. This urge has survived down to our time. Its commonest manifestations are marriage, divorce, neuroses, and, a little less frequently, gun-fire."

I love this writing, it's slow and it's quiet and it's methodically hilarious.