Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade

Subtitle: An Irreverent Escapade

Oh, what an absolute delight! I love Mame … she’s outrageous, convivial, adventurous, kind, a bon vivant, prone to exaggeration, unable to resist, unabashedly lacking in marketable skills, and yet full of confidence. She’s also completely and utterly devoted to her nephew, Patrick, who’s been orphaned and placed in her care at the tender age of nine. Oh, what an education he gets!

What started as a few essays in periodicals has been framed into this novel “memoir.” It’s funny and tender, horrifying and enthralling. I was appalled at some of Mame’s escapades, but enthralled by others, and always I was in her corner, cheering her on.

I’ve wanted to read this for years, ever since I had seen show more the marvelous movie starring Rosalind Russell, and I admit to picturing her throughout the novel. show less

¿Que les digo? Este libro es una delicia de pies a cabeza, de principio a fin, la tía Mame es todo un personaje, alguien digno de conocer y es inevitable amarla, adorarla, querer matarla y darle unas cuantas cachetadas también.

De verdad que disfrute tanto este libro, que no puedo mas que pensar en que todo el mundo debería leerlo y todos deberíamos tener a una tía mame en nuestras vidas, una mujer revolucionaria para su época, una mujer dramática, divertida, salerosa, ingenua, inteligente, divertida, complicada, cercana, pero sobre todo muy Mame.

Patrick, queda huérfano a los 10 años y tiene que irse a vivir con su Tía Mame, así empieza esta historia donde Patrick nos cuenta su vida con ella, los años vividos, vemos las idas show more y venidas, correrías, y experiencias de Patrick a lado de la mujer mas increíble que se le pudo atravesar.

Imposible no soltar las carcajadas, imposible no adorar a Tía Mame, impensable no leer este libro.

Divertida, cercana, entrañable, deliciosa, esta comedia es de lo mas recomendable. show less

Sparklingly witty, irreverently satirical, this 1955 novel manages to remain timelessly relevant in its cutting send-up of conformity, conservatism, and cupidity. Mame Dennis first swam into my ken during the long, hot, boring summer of 1973, an anodyne to the astoundingly dreary Watergate hearings on TV. I complained to my mother about the absence of entertainment, and she snorted mightily: "How can *anyone* be bored in this house full of books? Here, read this," and she handed me "Auntie Mame."

What can I say? Mother's always right. I love love loved this book then, and on re-reading it now 37 years later, I love it just as much...maybe more, I know more of how adult Mame felt being handed a kid to raise than I did at fourteen.

It's show more been perfect for me to read in the Auntie-adjustment period, because it's not a novel, it's a series of interconnected short stories that share a frame. I can snag a quick hit before the next issue arises that requires me to pay attention. It's flat-out hilarious, this cocktail culture send-up; Dennis, a pseudonym for the gay (literally) dawg E.E. Tanner III, was Uncle Mame (title of his biogrpahy, BTW) and had an Aunt Marion who was the model for a lot of Mame's characteristics. Dennis hated confromity, he loathed insincerity, he was revolted by Babbittry, and he skewered his targets on brightly colored little cocktail toothpicks with the hula-themed hors d'ouevre.

Mame and Patrick are limousine liberals, rich people who have it in themselves to understand and work to ameliorate the burdens of those not like themsleves. In many ways, I think Teddy Kennedy would identify with Mame and Patrick. I think they're still, to this good day, sterling examples to the well-to-do. The stories here are about Patrick in larval and chrysalis stages, before Mame effects the rowdy transition of her little love into the oddly spotted butterfly he becomes. It's delightful to trot along behind Patrick as he tells us of his life with his Most Unforgettable Character. (Anyone old enough to remember those articles in Reader's Digest is old enough to follow the archaic references in this book.)

Oh, and those references...there are lots of them, and the book's genesis in the Fifties means they're even older still. A working knowledge of the 1930s and the haute couture of the day is helpful, but not necessary. Just realize that each name dropped is hoity-toity, and move on...or use this Interweb thingie to learn *a lot* about the status symbols of a bygone era. Either way, you won't miss the fun and the funny that whizzes around behind you to tickle your ribs and neck mercilessly, making you laugh harder than you'll remember laughing in a very long time.

Read it and weep...from laughter! show less

Since it was reprinted, the topic of Mame Dennis has crept into a lot of online reviews and conversations over cocktails. I recently got into a screaming match on an airplane over the topic of Mame's relevance today. Even some of the reviews on this site are less than flattering and I want to answer them all by suggesting that the authors (and readers) read the book again.
Mame is an icon, even today. She is our Alice in Wonderland all grown up, smarter, wittier and more interesting than Mary Poppins, and I wish that she had been sent to Oz instead of that Dorothy girl or allowed to poke around the back of C.S. Lewis' wardrobe. No other heroine of modern fiction would have kept the Japanese Ito in her employ, or stood up to such ugly show more anti-Semitism in polite New York society. She rallies behind a pregnant Agnes Gooch and looks after her nephew (and a whole lot of other children during the war) as few other figures might have; dominating four decades as no other could have, she knows the benefit of a good drink and the power of humour in bleak times. This book and its title character are as remarkable today as when the book was first released, and I daresay that she will be for a long time to come. show less

This is a fun read. It starts with a young boy orphaned in 1929 who must go live with an Aunt who loves a good party and who considers 9 A.M. the “middle of the night”. Soon she has him circulating about during her cocktail parties, and later sends him off to an alternative school taught in the nude to release inhibitions. For while Auntie Mame is cultured and lives for the finer things in life, she also flouts conventionality, encourages new ways of thinking, and loves the avant-garde.

Each chapter is another misadventure for the pair as the boy gradually grows up to be a man, but common to all of the tales, and underneath the humor, there is social critique of both the idle rich and the uncultured bourgeois. Auntie Mame firmly show more disagrees with racism, elitism, and ignorance wherever she finds it. This madcap, sophisticated lady seems to be the prototype for many a derivative character in our culture to this day. Dennis slips humor and cultural references in very smoothly to his writing, and while he occasionally also indulges in stereotypes, I found this to be a smart, edgy book, particularly for 1955. show less

Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade is one of my favorite books. I stumbled on the reprint edition when it came out in 2001 at my local Barnes & Noble, and the cover caught my eye (yes, I did judge this book by its cover, and I'm so glad that I did, since it caused a love affair with Mame that has lasted for twelve years now). Every couple of years, I need a Mame fix and I pull the book off the shelves and reacquaint myself with all the characters and madcap adventures found within (as well as the sequel, Around the World with Auntie Mame.

This current read was done with my book group (I'll be honest: this was my first selection for the book group, which had already been established when they invited me to join, and I was a little show more concerned how the book would be received. I'm happy to report that it was a rousing success with everyone!), so it was interesting to have three fresh perspectives on the book, as sometimes after so many readings, some of the finer nuances get lost in the sheer delight of rereading a favorite book (at least it does for me).

Mame herself, quite naturally, was the name reason for everyone enjoying the book. Starting off in the Roaring 20s, we watch as Mame's fortunes wax and wane with the Stock Market crash of the late 1920s, and how she struggles to keep her little make-shift family together, which she does through her own indomitable will. Told through the eyes of her nephew, Patrick, we watch as Mame raises him to the best of her ability, and while her techniques for raising a child may not be orthodox, they are certainly effective. Eventually, Mame meets the perfect man for her, and her fortunes are restored and she's back to her madcap ways. Through everything, though, Mame remains strong and resolute in her beliefs of equality and what's best for the people around her. What starts off as a seemingly ridiculous little adventure with a ragtag cast of characters becomes a heartfelt testament to what family means, both with the family we are born with and the family that we make for ourselves, and how important it is to stay true to yourself, even in the face of adversity.

For me, this will be a book that I will go back to over and over again for the rest of my life. I adore it; I adore the character of Mame; and I adore the message that Patrick Dennis leaves us with this book. If you've never read it before, please give it a chance. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! show less

This classic defies just about any conventional assumptions that most classics bring to mind. The book is episodic. It starts with Patrick, a 10-year-old boy who is orphaned and about to move in with his eccentric aunt. Each chapter tells a new story about their adventures, tracing his upbringing all the way through college.

Auntie Mame is narcissistic and dramatic, but it makes for entertaining disasters. It reminded me a bit of all the predicaments that Wooster gets into in the Jeeves books. She constantly comes up with new schemes and then finds herself in trouble. There’s one section, Southern Belle, where she ends up on horseback chasing after a fox. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

Other episode show more feature a less flattering view of her as she flirts with younger men or exploits people who offer her a favor. She’s one of the most extreme characters I’ve come across. She won’t ever be tamed and any day with her is sure to defy expectations.

BOTTOM LINE: I enjoyed it, but never felt completely sucked into her world. While Wooster is a loveable screw-up, Mame makes decisions based solely on whatever she desires in that moment. Usually those decisions put her nephew in a tricky position. That grew a bit tiresome as the book went on, just as being friends with a real person like Auntie Mame surely would.

"My dear, a rich vocabulary is the true hallmark of every intellectual person. Here now -" she burrowed into the mess on her bedside table and brought forth another pad and pencil - "every time I say a word, or you hear a word, but you don't understand, you write it down and I'll tell you what it means. Then you memorize it and soon you'll have a decent vocabulary. Oh, the adventure," she cried ecstatically, "of molding a new little new life!" She made another sweeping gesture that somehow went wrong because she knocked over the coffee pot and I immediately wrote down six new words which Auntie Mame said to scratch out and forget about.

“She was built along the lines of a General Electric refrigerator and looked like a cross between Caligula and a cockatoo.”

Funny Sidenote: Apparently Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the same playwrights behind “Inherit the Wind”, wrote the successful play version of Auntie Mame. show less