Cloudland Revisited: A Misspent Youth in Books and Film

S. J. Perelman

Apr 2024 · Library of America

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Gathered for the first time: one of America's great humorists revisits the books and movies from his youth—often with some embarrassment—in this complete, 22-piece collection

From October 1948 to October 1953, The New Yorker published humorist S. J. Perelman’s “Cloudland Revisited” series: 22 reviews of once-popular books and silent films whose expiration dates had passed. All but forgotten even at the time, they were nonetheless part of Perelman’s youth and made an indelible mark on him.

In the comic genius’s biting satire they live once again:

• Gertrude Atherton’s sensationalist fantasy Black Oxen
• Sax Rohmer’s supervillain blockbuster The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu
• the “underwater” silent film adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
• Edgar Rice Burrough’s 1914 novel Tarzan of the Apes
• and George Barr McCutcheon’s 1901 historical fantasy novel Graustark—the Game of Thrones of its era—which launched numerous sequels and film adaptations

The complete series is collected here for the first time. With self-deprecating humor and frequent embarrassment, Perelman reflects on how rereading and rewatching brings us in contact with how we, like an old book or film, have both changed and remained the same. This paperback includes a tribute to Perelman’s art by another beloved New Yorker writer, Adam Gopnik.

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Sidney Joseph Perelman (1904–1979) was a longtime contributor to The New Yorker, in which he first published many of his humorous essays and sketches, and travel pieces. He also wrote film scripts for the Marx Brothers and shared an Oscar in 1956 with James Poe and James Farrow for the screenplay of Around the World in Eighty Days.

Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at The New Yorker; he has written for the magazine since 1986. He has three National Magazine awards, for essays and for criticism, and also a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. The author of numerous best-selling books, including Paris to the Moon, he lives in New York City.