{"id":930,"date":"2004-12-03T09:39:16","date_gmt":"2004-12-03T17:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/12\/just_enough_thomson\/"},"modified":"2004-12-03T09:39:16","modified_gmt":"2004-12-03T17:39:16","slug":"just_enough_thomson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/12\/just_enough_thomson.html","title":{"rendered":"JUST ENOUGH THOMSON"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Thomson, reviewing “Just Enough
\nLiebling”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> in the Dec. 13 issue of The Nation, makes a candid confession of
\nthe sort you rarely ever hear from a reviewer. “I am bound to admit,” he writes, “that before this
\nassignment I honored the name without knowing the books.” But Thomson (biographer, film
\nscholar, movie critic, essayist, and novelist) is nothing if not a quick study.
\n

In “a few weeks” he became a Liebling connoiseur, “tracking down odd titles” and
\ndiscovering a writer “who can hardly write a sentence without making you smile.” Thomson
\nproves his connoiseurship by distilling the essence of
\nLiebling<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> to this: “[T]he joke lies so often in the noble way splendid prose and
\nwry stoicism have drawn a brief veil over all the ordinary forms of hell.”
\n

Clive James and James Wolcott combined would have a hard time beating that description.
\nThen Thomson adds the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance<\/EM>: “It is a sprightliness in the face of
\neveryday horror that held Mark Twain together.” Pardon a mixed metaphor (readers who know
\nLiebling’s devotion to food and boxing will forgive me), but that’s dessert topped by a straight
\nright to the chin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Thomson, reviewing “Just Enough Liebling” in the Dec. 13 issue of The Nation, makes a candid confession of the sort you rarely ever hear from a reviewer. “I am bound to admit,” he writes, “that before this assignment I honored the name without knowing the books.” But Thomson (biographer, film scholar, movie critic, essayist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-f0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}