P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022)
Auteur de Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
A propos de l'auteur
P. J. O'Rourke was born in Toledo, Ohio on November 14, 1947. He received a B. A. from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a M.A. in English from Johns Hopkins University. He worked for the magazine National Lampoon, eventually becoming editor-in-chief. He received a writing credit for National afficher plus Lampoon's Lemmings which helped launch the careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase. In 1981, he left the magazine to write screenplays including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money. He contributes regularly to several magazines including Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The American Spectator, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Weekly Standard, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of 20 books including Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, All the Troubles in the World, Don't Vote! - It Just Encourages the Bastards, and How It Got That Way (And It Wasn't My Fault) (And I'll Never Do It Again). (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: P.J. O'Rourke [credit: Cato Institute]
Œuvres de P. J. O'Rourke
Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government (1991) 1,553 exemplaires
Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut: Twenty-Five Years of P. J. O'Rourke (1995) 761 exemplaires
Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed to Be—With an… (2009) 213 exemplaires
American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare (1996) 144 exemplaires
The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again) (2014) 108 exemplaires
National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody (1974) — Directeur de publication — 45 exemplaires
National Lampoon Tenth Anniversary Anthology 1970–1980: Volume II (1980) — Directeur de publication — 11 exemplaires
Best of the National Lampoon #7 1 exemplaire
Eight little civics lessons 1 exemplaire
The New Enemies List 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributeur — 452 exemplaires
There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (1998) — Contributeur — 210 exemplaires
Writers on Writing, 2: More Collected Essays from the New York Times (2003) — Contributeur — 186 exemplaires
Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs from the New Yorker (2011) — Avant-propos — 79 exemplaires
National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook: 39th Reunion Edition (2003) — Contributeur — 74 exemplaires
Very seventies : a cultural history of the 1970s, from the pages of Crawdaddy (1995) — Contributeur — 24 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom canonique
- O'Rourke, P. J.
- Nom légal
- O'Rourke, Patrick Jake
- Date de naissance
- 1947-11-14
- Date de décès
- 2022-02-15
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieu de naissance
- Toledo, Ohio, USA
- Lieu du décès
- Sharon, New Hampshire, USA
- Cause du décès
- cancer (lung, complications)
- Lieux de résidence
- Sharon, New Hampshire, USA
Washington, D.C., USA - Études
- Miami University (B.A.|1969)
Johns Hopkins University (MA ∙ 1970) - Professions
- editor
journalist - Relations
- O'Rourke, Tina (wife)
- Organisations
- National Lampoon
Rolling Stone
Cato Institute
The Atlantic Monthly
The Weekly Standard
The Daily Beast
Membres
Critiques
The material is great, but huge swaths of the 2005 paperback reprint have been completely re-typeset and just look wrong.
The author has studied Adam Smith's seminal work of the 18th century (1776), and interpreted it in modern terms so that the rest of us are spared that ordeal. The result is a light, quirky, humorous account of the main strands of the treatrise, which as is well known, rests on two principles, the division of labor and specialisation, and the 'hidden hand' of free market exchanges to maximise satisfaction.
Listes
Prix et récompenses
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 46
- Aussi par
- 21
- Membres
- 11,397
- Popularité
- #2,062
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 171
- ISBN
- 299
- Langues
- 10
- Favoris
- 43
When I read that, I agreed with it, for I have read a number of O'Rourke books and laughed my way through each of them. Yet after finishing this book, I found that I disagreed. So what went wrong?
The main problem, I think, is that O'Rourke's lines are funnier in context than standing alone. There are exceptions, of course:
"There is only one hard-and-fast rule about the place to have a party: someone else's place."
"If you run more than twenty miles a week, try not to die young, It will make people snigger."
"El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus — and this was a relief — no Californians."
"Freedom of speech is important — if you have anything to say. I've checked the Internet; nobody does."
Yet so many of the lines quoted were, I'm sure, much more amusing in the context of the book or article in which they are found. They are like the punch lines without the jokes.
And many of the excerpts collected by Terry McDonell, the editor, are not really funny at all, but just good examples of clever writing, even witty writing, but not knee-slapping stuff. Here is a sample about Tanzania" "Probably every child whose parents weren't rich enough has been told, 'We're rich in other ways.' Tanzania is fabulously rich in other ways." That's a great line, but I wouldn't call it funny.
I enjoyed “The Funny Stuff” very much, but I think I would have called it “The Good Stuff.”… (plus d'informations)