"Did you ever look at the stars so long," she continued, "that you almost became a part ofthem, so that when a lightning bug flew past your vision it got all mixed up with the Milky Way?" Did you ever sit alone for hours chewing the cud of your own futility, hating yourself for being yourself and blaming life for making you so? Well, that's the way I feel to-night. It's time for me to be moving on. I've enjoyed this sort of stuff too long. There are other things to do. I don't mean better things, merely more interesting ones. Our capacity to enjoy life should be measured by our ability to create life, or beauty or some form of happiness. So far I've created nothing, only a constant confusion, a restless, discontented stirring in the ether."
I'm glad to have read Thorne Smith's Topper. As far as I can recall, I never saw the movie. My guess is that Cary Grant's George Kerby character was expanded from the book.
For most of its length it's a well-made but very much of-its-time comic fantasy. In the final chapters, it achieves an ethereal beauty, and the dissatisfied middle-aged husband of the title finds a new kind of contentment. Sort of a fairy tale ending, but an unexpected one.
2 comments:
You've made the book sound so much more interesting than the movie I may have to read it. That means I'll also have to dig out my P.G. Wodehouse collection too.
I'll have to put Wodehouse on my agenda too. His humor seems to have influenced a lot of people I like.
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