Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx, Rowland Barber Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Harpo Speaks!
Book Review: A great book about the literary giants of the 1920s and 30s
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first read Harpo Speaks back in the 60's, it had a profound meaning in my life. It was through Harpo that I first learned of Woollcott -- and the works of the Algonquin Round Table: George Kaufman, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Benchley, FPA and the others. I found out about a magazine called the New Yorker and a playwright named Shaw. For a kid of about 12, who knew only Groucho from the quiz show, this was pretty heady stuff.Book Review: A sweet spirit speaks
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not sure what the ingredients are to this man's alchemy--parts humility, gentleness, astute observation unclogged with snooty education, and complete anarchy, the kind that brings down goverments--but I've never had such an intense, wistful desire to have known somebody in my life. This book gets less than five stars merely because the style of "little Arthur Marx's" collaborator (I'm assuming) can get so old-tyme movie magazine/Hedda Hopper/name-dropper that it's painful.
But, barring the ocassional style snaffu, Harpo's sweet nature comes out almost at every turn. And thrillingly, every name he drops is huge. Kaufmann, Parker, Ruth Gordon, Rachmanninoff, Rimsky-Korsikov, Hearst et Davies, the bizarre and brilliant Oscar Levant...on and on and on. The section on Levant alone would have made a delicious book.
"I got the impression when I was little", writes his son, Bill, "That vaudeville was this marvelous, mythical kingdom where fathers and uncles came from". Harpo and his brothers grew up poor, hungry and Jewish in fin de siècle New York's upper East Side. He writes of his mother's dream for her five boys--the stage, a ticket out of the slums and poverty--and what happened when they finally hit it big after years of dives and buggy flophouse beds. Vaudeville itself is one the main characters of the book.
As is the giant personality of Alexander Woollcott, his closest and oldest friend. If I understand this correctly, Woollcott and Marx and the rest of the Algonquins pranked each other for almost twenty years.
Their gags crossed continents and oceans. Their summer together on the Riviera is one of the most loony periods of his life--flashing George Bernard Shaw, crashing millionairess' cotillions, being seduced by stars into...reading them comics. I swear this is much funnier than I'm telling it, and more impressive. France would never be the same.
Neither, oddly, would Russia, which he visited in the early thirties, just when the starvation, murder and purges were gearing up full blast. In his capacity as "professional listener" (and watcher)--and as a guy that never seems to think much of himself--Harpo talks to and quotes everyone: Jewish stagehands ("At least here there are no pogroms") , theatre promoters, Soviet party big-wigs, spies ("Da. I understand. Is joke...") .
After all the lunacy, his settled married life seems to have been very satisfying. He certainly seems to have been the ideal father to his wife Susan's sensible Mom. Okay, who am I trying to kid? He sounds like the PERFECT father, a goofy Atticus Finch, if you will. No wonder Susan, his wife, tracked him down and finagled an invite to the Goldwyn's to meet him, and hung around for months while he waffled. It's so romantic it will make your toes curl with pleasure.
As Arthur Marx ages, this book becomes increasingly poignant. Where does all that youthful silliness and energy go, as one slows down? If the last few pages, set in a Vegas casino with an old friend, don't make you weep with the recognition of the place in our lives where we accept our limits--then you have a heart of stone. Beautiful.
A simply heartrending Afterword by Harpo's son Bill completes the book. "I miss him," he writes. "Harpo I can see on the late show, along with my crazy uncles. It's Dad that I miss." We do too, Bill.
Book Review: A very touching book.
Summary: 5 Stars
I admire Mr. Marx for learning/teaching himself so many different things later in his life that he never had the chance to do during his childhood. He learned by his association with other intellectuals and by being a quick study. Being an adoptee, myself, I found it fascinating to read about this special gift Harpo gave his children.Book Review: A wonderful autobiography
Summary: 5 Stars
This was the first book that I bought just because of the reviews written at Amazon. I'm adding my 10 to everyone elses. I liked the candor and the humor. It doesn't read like a nearly 40 year-old book (I'm not sure what I mean by that but I think I mean something). Like some other autobiographies, sex is mentioned less often than it would if a truthful listing of priorities was made, but I wasn't reading it for that kind of an education.Book Review: A wonderful read
Summary: 5 Stars
I lost a lot of sleep the week I was reading this. I would decide to read a chapter before turning out the light. Three hours, and several chapters later I would force myself to put it down so I would at least get a little sleep before work. The writing is wonderful. It is a collaboration with Roland Barber, but the voice feels like Harpo throughout. The stories of his early days on the road with his brothers- their mother the dynamo keeping them at it- are fascinating to read. He had amazing, interesting friends, the Round Table folks, George Burns. His later family life is terrific to read about. It is a deep book, and a beautiful book. Funny, and touching without being smarmy. A great, great book.