Getting Even | Without Feathers | Side Effects
by Woody Allen
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Description
The Insanity Defense reveals many sides of Woody Allen as he holds forth on the most human of urges ("Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only for food: frequently there must be a beverage"); reflects on death ("I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear"); and notes the effect on history wrought by trick chewing gum, the dribble glass, and other novelties. There is also an inspiring story of the futile race to beat Dr. Heimlich to the punch: "The show more food went down the wrong pipe, and choking occurred. Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. If we can transfer the procedure to humans, we may have something. Too early to tell."--Publishers description. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A book of essays, Woody puts his usual philosophical spin on everything from laundry to sex--especially laundry and sex. He's really hung up on both and I think he needs to seek a therapist to talk out his issues. Oh snap! He has! Funny, clever, over-my-head intelligent at times, it was an interesting read and I think speaks to the wackiness that is Woody Allen.
The three volumes of Woody Allen’s short comic pieces, mainly from the pages of the New Yorker. It’s a little strange that the volumes are out of order, with the first volume second and the second first. If you’re familiar with Allen’s other work the style and often absurd humour won’t surprise, and are more likely to raise a chuckle than a belly laugh. As with any anthology of work some pieces appeal more than others (for me it’s Viva Vargas! and The Kugelmass Episode) and some float by unmemorably. Only the penultimate piece in the book, Revolution, feels uncomfortable after Allen’s romantic history and recent accusations.
Folks often tell me I remind them of Woody Allen.... But as I'm over six-feet tall, and have a huge black beard Moses or Karl Marx might have envied, and don't wear glasses, I'm hardly a dead ringer, the spittin image, or whatever.
Woody's ambition was always to be somebody else, and I can relate to that. Mine was always to be HIM (at least while he was loved by Mia Farrow).
The really big difference between us, however, is that he's very talented, and this comes across in this trilogy of titles, as well as in films like "Love and Death".
(For what it's worth, I do make people laugh a lot, but never intentionally... there's the rub!)
Anyhow, these excerpts, hopefully, may amuse you:
Should I marry W.? Not if she won't tell me the other show more letters in her name.
Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, How insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.
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Look at me, he thought. Fifty years old. Half a century. Next year, I will be fifty-one. Then fifty-two. Using this same reasoning, he could figure out his age as much as five years in the future. So little time left, he thought, and so much to accomplish.
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Gossage:
How curious your last letter was! Well-intended, concise, containing all the elements that would appear to make up what passes among certain reference groups as a communicative effect, yet tinged throughout by what Jean-Paul Sartre is so fond of referring to as "nothingness."
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Notes from the Overfed
(After reading Dostoevski and the new "Weight Watchers" magazine on the same plane trip)
I am fat. I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?) I am hundreds of pounds overweight. Flesh drips from me like hot fudge off a sundae. My girth has been an object of disbelief to everyone who's seen me. There is no question about it, I am a regular fatty. Now, the reader may ask, are there advantages or disavantages to being built like a planet? I do not mean to be facetious or speak in paradoxes, but I must answer that fat in itself is above bourgeois morality... For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds? ...No, my friend, we must never attempt to distinguish between good fat and bad fat. We must train ourselves to confront the obese without judging...
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Understand that you are dealing with a man who knocked off Finnegan's Wake on the roller coaster at Coney Island... And yet , with this much perception dripping from me, like maple syrup off waffles, I was reminded recently that I possess an Achilles' heel culturewise that runs up my leg to the back of my neck. show less
Woody's ambition was always to be somebody else, and I can relate to that. Mine was always to be HIM (at least while he was loved by Mia Farrow).
The really big difference between us, however, is that he's very talented, and this comes across in this trilogy of titles, as well as in films like "Love and Death".
(For what it's worth, I do make people laugh a lot, but never intentionally... there's the rub!)
Anyhow, these excerpts, hopefully, may amuse you:
Should I marry W.? Not if she won't tell me the other show more letters in her name.
Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, How insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.
+
Look at me, he thought. Fifty years old. Half a century. Next year, I will be fifty-one. Then fifty-two. Using this same reasoning, he could figure out his age as much as five years in the future. So little time left, he thought, and so much to accomplish.
+
Gossage:
How curious your last letter was! Well-intended, concise, containing all the elements that would appear to make up what passes among certain reference groups as a communicative effect, yet tinged throughout by what Jean-Paul Sartre is so fond of referring to as "nothingness."
+
Notes from the Overfed
(After reading Dostoevski and the new "Weight Watchers" magazine on the same plane trip)
I am fat. I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?) I am hundreds of pounds overweight. Flesh drips from me like hot fudge off a sundae. My girth has been an object of disbelief to everyone who's seen me. There is no question about it, I am a regular fatty. Now, the reader may ask, are there advantages or disavantages to being built like a planet? I do not mean to be facetious or speak in paradoxes, but I must answer that fat in itself is above bourgeois morality... For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds? ...No, my friend, we must never attempt to distinguish between good fat and bad fat. We must train ourselves to confront the obese without judging...
+
Understand that you are dealing with a man who knocked off Finnegan's Wake on the roller coaster at Coney Island... And yet , with this much perception dripping from me, like maple syrup off waffles, I was reminded recently that I possess an Achilles' heel culturewise that runs up my leg to the back of my neck. show less
First of all, maybe my favorite title ever. Allen's humor is, in my opinion, even more effective on the page than it is on the screen. I've never laughed so loud while reading prose, and it may have even surpassed the belly shaking satisfaction of my friends Calvin and Hobbes (no disrespect to Mr Watterson). A specific selection from this collection was handed out at the winter break in one of my high school English classrooms, the only instruction being read it and enjoy the holidays. The story was one in which a man has an affair with Madame Bovary, of the book of that title, via a magical box. Of course, the class had only recently finished reading said book, and I'm glad that the teacher introduced me to a side of Woody Allen that I show more was not at that point familiar with. show less
Funny, yes, but not uproarious. Good one-liners here and there, but the absurdist style of the humour becomes a bit formulaic after a while. Plus, in my paperback edition every piece (most of which are only five to ten pages long) is introduced by a title page, a blank verso and then a half-page drop, so there's a lot of white space and the volume could easily have been forty pages shorter.
A highlight: "The Gossage–Vardebedian Papers", in which two academics play chess – and then Scrabble – by correspondence. But at least one of them is cheating, both are more interested in intellectual one-upmanship than enjoying a social pastime, and neither of them can admit that the game has long since become hopelessly confused.
A highlight: "The Gossage–Vardebedian Papers", in which two academics play chess – and then Scrabble – by correspondence. But at least one of them is cheating, both are more interested in intellectual one-upmanship than enjoying a social pastime, and neither of them can admit that the game has long since become hopelessly confused.
It's too predictably surreal at some points, but it's one of the very few books that have made me laugh out loud in public.
I LOVE "The Kugelmass Episode"! There are some gems in here.
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Author Information
268+ Works 15,982 Members
Allen's favorite personality-the bemused neurotic, the perpetual worrywart, the born loser-dominates his plays, his movies, and his essays. A native New Yorker, Allen attended local schools and despised them, turning early to essay writing as a way to cope with his Since his apprenticeship, writing gags for comedians such as Sid Caesar and Garry show more Moore, the image he projects-of a "nebbish from Brooklyn"-has developed into a personal metaphor of life as a concentration camp from which no one escapes alive. Allen wants to be funny, but isn't afraid to be serious either-even at the same time. His film Annie Hall, co-written with Marshall Brickman and winner of four Academy Awards, was a subtle, dramatic development of the contemporary fears and insecurities of American life. In her review of Love and Death, Judith Christ wrote that Allen was more interested in the character rather than the cartoon, the situation rather than the set-up, and the underlying madness rather than the surface craziness. Later Allen films, such as Crimes and Misdemeanors or Husbands and Wives, take on a far more somber and philosophic tone, which has delighted some critics and appalled others. In Allen's essays and fiction reprinted from the New Yorker, Getting Even New Yorker, (1971), Without Feathers (1975), and Side Effects (1980), the situations and characters don't just speak to us, they are us. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Complete Prose of Woody Allen; Getting Even | Without Feathers | Side Effects
- Alternate titles
- The Insanity Defense
- Original publication date
- 1991
- People/Characters
- Woody Allen
- Epigraph
- Hope is the thing with feathers...
Emily Dickinson - First words
- Following are excerpts from the hitherto secret private journal of Woody Allen, which will be published posthumously or after his death, which ever comes first.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The six years I lived with that family were very happy ones, and I often look back on them with affection, although there is also much to be said for working on a chain gang.
- Disambiguation notice*
- 'Cuentos sin plumas' no se corresponde a la edición original 'Without feathers' y no es el mismo libro que 'Sin plumas' sino que es una recopilación de tres obras: la mencionada 'Without feathers', 'Side Effects' y 'Getting... (show all) even'.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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