HISTORICAL - FALL 2023
Words by Taylor Dorrell Illustrations by Annie Deibel Layout by Bryce Patterson
A
writer is not a film star of grave visual interest, not a political figure of overarching power, not a worker of direct utility. A writer is their text, a channel that projects carefully crafted words wielded like a brush. With literary figures, the physical being is less relevant, disappointing even, than their works. They are less often the postcard of masculinity, rarely a Hemingway, and more often the scrawny man with glasses drowning, as James Thurber was, helplessly in the South of France – thankfully he was saved by a man with a wooden leg, to which Thurber asked him “to save the women and children… after he got me out.”
early life as an insecure, introverted, and nearly blind fellow. It’s under these circumstances that Thurber first sailed to Paris in his mid-twenties. That First Time He Saw Paris Thurber’s first journey to Paris was a nauseating one. Possessing a chronic seasickness unfamiliar to a landlocked Thurber, he spent much of his time clinging nauseously to his bunk as the ship, the Orizaba, took an elusive route to avoid the remaining submarines of the Great War. On November 11, 1918, before a pale Thurber docked in St.-Nazaire, the Armistice was signed.
Insofar as Thurber’s works are concerned, they have been largely forgotten. His books are generally unknown, his articles unread. Even in his hometown of Columbus, I have found few who know his name and none who know his books. The writer, who EB White “preferred” over “Mark Twain” as a humorist, has dropped off the radar of our literary canon. But it’s his visual interest, his underwhelming power, his European adventures – ranging from the accidental setting off of a grenade to the losing of his virginity and then the finding of it again – that concern us today.
He arrived in Paris to celebrations. The gray Parisian Fall weather was met with the high spirits of Paris’ peace festivities. “Girls snatched overseas caps and tunic buttons from American soldiers, paying for them in hugs and kisses,” Thurber claiming that, “The Americans have never been so loved in France, or anywhere else abroad.” One of the hats that was snatched was his own. Since his trunk was left behind in St.-Nazaire, he had to buy a new suit, which was inflated both by wartime prices and a tailor who refused to deliver him anything but a vastly oversized outfit. He would go for much of the trip with a massive suit and no hat.
Thurber was born and raised in Columbus, attending OSU in the 1910s. Despite his middleclass background, he did not have an easy life in his youth. Were it not for his brother William accidently shooting his eye out with an arrow at seven, James might’ve graduated from OSU, leading a life that would be considered “normal” for the time, that is, going off to war and losing his eye on the battlefield. Instead, Thurber spent much of his
An eager observer and an adventurous loner, Thurber lived a happy life as a master of code – he was working as a code clerk at the American Embassy – in his slice of Paris. He did not, unlike other Americans in his position, take to the great cultural wonders of the city, those tourist destinations sought after by foreigners. Instead, he
52