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Ring Lardner: Selected Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ring Lardner
Creator: Jonathan Yardley
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 714124
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 410
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0141180188
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780141180182
ASIN: 0141180188
Publication Date: May 1, 1997
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 When Baseball Was Champ December 8, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The first paragraph of this review was written for the series of stories in Ring Lardner's You Know Me, Al that are also contained in the present book under review as well. In addition to You Know Me, Al there some other classic baseball stories here, particularly Alibi Ike and My Roomy that can be covered by the comments in the first paragraph below. The other, non-baseball, stories in this book are reviewed in the second paragraph.
At one time early in the first part of the 20th century there was no question that baseball was the American pastime. That was a time when the name Ring Lardner was well known in sports writing and literary circles. The sports writing part was easy because that was his beat. The literary part is much harder to recognize but clearly the character of Jack Keefe has become an American classic. Does one need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this work? Hell, no. We all know, in sports or otherwise, this guy Keefe. Right? You know the guy with some talent who has no problem blaming the other guy for mistakes while he (or she) is pure as the driven snow. That is the concept that drives these stories told as in the form of letters to Al, his buddy back home. The language, the malapropisms and the schemes all evoke an earlier more innocent time in sport and society. I do not believe that you could create such a character based on today's sport's ethic. The athletes would have a spokesperson `spinning' their take on the matters of the day. The only one that might have come close is Nuke LaRouche in the movie Bull Durham but as that movie progressed Nuke was getting `wise'. Read these stories. More than once.
There is no question that aside from a deft ear as a sportswriter Ring Lardner also had an ear for the foibles and frustrations of the newly rising middle class of the post World War I Midwestern heartland. This is not the land of Fitzgerald's or Hemingway's "Lost Generation" but of those left behind trying to scratch out an existence anyway they could. However, rather than beat up on the `yokels' straight up Lardner pokes and prods at their pretensions in a fairly harmless way, at least on the surface, but on re-reading these stories recently I found myself saying `ouch' to the literary stabs in the backs that he thrust at his victims in stories like Gullible's Travels (a title which aptly sums up my comment) and The Big Town. Read on.
 A mixed bag August 20, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mr. Yardley says in his introduction that Lardner broke out as a first rate short story writer in the 1920's. The stories in this collection, however, are from the teens of the 20th century and as such are mixed in quality.It is not clear why a publisher in devoting a book to an author's short stories would not include anything but the best work of the author in it.
There are at least two stories in here that one can call genuinely first rate, probably one or two more. The best and most enjoyable by far is the longest (over 140 pages), "You Know me Al." It consists of letters written by a semi-literate mythical Chicago White Sox player, Jack Keefe,over the course of six or eight years back to "Al," his childhood buddy in rural Indiana. The story is really masterfully crafted in its presentation of vividly clear details and overall reality. Jack is literally a moron. He is a complete rube. It is apparently easy to bamboozle him to do anything..
Jack, in his letters to Al, is full of childish bragging, continually declaring how everybody thinks he is the best pitcher ever. He states that if anybody scores runs off him, it is because the infielders didn't get over fast enough to get ground balls that went for base hits and the outfielders did not catch fly balls because they weren't quick enough to get under them. Indeed, one of the amusing things is the great number of times he blames his fielders for genuine base hits or extra base hits he gives up.
Some other funny matters include how Jack tactlessly asks Al for money during the off-season of his rookie year; how Jack is solemnly proud of himself for what he conceives to be clever responses to sarcastic jokes about himself; his efforts to make his infant baby stop crying when he is left alone with it by giving it some of his adult brother in law's stomach medicine; his severe personal dislike of left-handed pitchers and his great fear that his little son will become left-handed. Another funny part is where Jack explains to Al that he and Florrie did not at all believe that Al's wife Bertha was an unsophisticated ugly rube as Al feared; Jack then says that when the two couples get together in the future Florrie will have to teach Bertha all about being a sophisticated successful woman. Then later while Jack explains to Al exactly what a beauty parlor is, he gives the example that if Bertha were to go to such a place, they would "wash the grime out of her hair" and whiten up her face to cover her facial moles.
After "Al" there is a dramatic falling off. "Alibi Ike" flows reasonably enough but it is rather fluffy and silly. It was obviously written for a popular audience. I have similar feelings about "Harmony," a story about a baseball player who is rather insanely interested in maintaining a singing group with several teammates, and a better story,"My Roomy." I think "The Facts" is a pretty good story until the end when Tommy and Billy try to do a quick shopping spree for Billy's fiance in downtown Chicago and the story becomes a bit incoherent. It becomes somewhat of a hack job.
I think the other top-rate story in the book is "The Champion." It is about a brutish boxer who doesn't hesitate to assault both women and men who upset him and who abandons the starving mother of his baby as he does his mother and crippled brother. However the sportswriters are too lazy to seriously get to know him and simply transcribe the words of Midge's (the boxer's) handlers that he is a devout Christian and devoted to his mother, etc.
Yardley implies that he thinks "The Young Immigrunts" a fine story but I'm not so sure. It's an interesting piece certainly. The story is told in written form by a four year old boy. Four years old? If he was eight years old maybe one can believe it, but it is hard to believe a four year old being so literate. It may not have come off as completely effective for me but nonetheless there is a certain clarity of detail in it that makes it of some merit.
The second longest story is "The Big Town" and it follows the model of an earlier story,"Gullible's Travels." That is to say it is told by a smart alecky husband with a social climbing wife. The man and his wife and sister-in-law, fresh from a large inheritance from the wife's father, move to New York from Indiana and the wife and her sister are eager to push into high society. The story starts out a little slow. Like "Gullible's Travels" the story is rather flawed by the narration tactics of the husband. That is to say, the man speaks in a light-hearted smart alecky sentimental folksy style that is irritating. He continually drops unfunny witticisms about everything to the reader, to his wife, sister-in-law.and others. However I don't think it would be too outlandish to call the story pretty solid, certainly not at the level of "You Know Me Al," but still good, particularly after Mr. Daley, the rich horse race owner and his jockey Mercer come into the story.
I think the very last story "Some Like Them Cold" is good because it is clear and to the point. It contains a brief exchange of letters between a quiet refined middle class lady and a stupid gentleman who met each other at a Chicago train station while the stupid man was heading off to New York to make a career as a popular song writer.
As for notions that Lardner's stories are unintelligible to today's audience I don't think that is a big problem to judge by this book.
 Poorly-chosen anthology; fantastic writer December 14, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
We're far enough away from Lardner's heydey that it should be fairly easy to spot his best work from his enormous output. In this case, we're talking fiction -- there's an awful lot of non-fiction to be collected properly, yet -- and so it's mystifying why so much of this fairly slim anthology is Lardner's mediocre work. Where are such great stories as "I Can't Breathe" or (arguably) "Haircut"? Also, why excerpt so much of YOU KNOW ME AL when it's either best read cover to cover or represented with two or three pieces (to whet the appetite) and then moving on?
The earlier collection assembled by Lardner, ROUND UP, is far, far better than this. This great writer's books have all but disappeared from most bookstores; with a collection like this carrying his flag, it's no wonder why someone might simply shrug and ask what, exactly, is the big deal?
This should rate two and a half stars -- not an option here.
 "She looked at me like a side dish I hadn't ordered" October 31, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
What a great gift it is to be funny on the page, to be able to make people laugh outloud.
Ring Lardner had this in a big way.
Mark Twain did it first and had his characters talk very much like the people he had met. But Ring Lardner does this for all kinds of American midwest and smalltown American people. He does it for boxers and baseball players, for gangsters and actresses.
This collection includes much of the best Lardner and is highly recommended.
I love Lardner but there are better collections January 23, 2001
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I absolutely love Ring Lardner. Some of his classics such as "Alibi Ike" and "Champion" are included in this volume. Champion is a frightening portrait of a brutal, totally amoral heavyweight champ who makes Mike Tyson look like a choir boy. The character is absolutely chilling and stands in sharp contrast to the many humorous characters Lardner has created. The beauty of his more humorous creations is that they bring a chuckle but are not so outlandish as be unreal. What is funny is that we all probably know people who are just like those satirized by Lardner. My criticism of this collection is that it omits my favorite Lardner story: "Mr. & Mrs. Fixit." We all know people like those lampooned in that story and it's too bad it's missing. My suggestion is to buy a collection that omits the short novel "You Know Mw Al" and buy one with a larger selection of shorter stories and then buy "You Know Me Al" separately. However, if you do buy this, you will still most certainly get your money's worth.
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