Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx, Rowland Barber Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Harpo Speaks!
Book Review: From a Fan
Summary: 5 Stars
only 58 pages into it but i love it so far. here's a great excerpt...
"Groucho having been chosen by Minnie (their mother)
to follow in the footsteps of Uncle Al, had already
seen Uncle Al on the stage, and he knew his routines
and songs by memory. I decided to take Groucho on as a
partner (as Chico had once taken me on, in the
cuckoo-clock promotion), when i found out that stores
in the neighborhood were paying a penny apiece for
cats. I've forgotten why they were. There must have
been a mouse plague or cat shortage, or both, that
year.
So now I was a promoter. Groucho and i put on a
show in our basement. We performed Uncle Al's popular
sketch, "Quo Vadis Upside Down." Admission: one cat.
It was my first public performance. As I remember,
we grossed seven cats at the box office but made a net
profit of only four cents. Three cats got away. Well,
that was show business."
:-)
Book Review: Funny & touching
Summary: 5 Stars
A great book! Both funny and touching. I always thought Groucho was the only one with literary verve in the family, but Harpo (together with his collaborator) rocks! A must-read for Marx brothers fans and people who likes intelligent, sensible and funny books. Best together with Groucho & Me, where you can compare their different views on the same events.Book Review: Funny, fascinating and detailed, all in historical context.
Summary: 5 Stars
Harpo Speaks! is a wonderfully detailed and humorous description of his life as a struggling boy actor in the 1900's, his burgeoning career of the 1910's, and greater success and acclaim thereafter. Unlike his "kid brother with the moustache", Harpo was not at all averse to providing detailed autobiographical information, or at furnishing a clear chronological context with respect to the rest of the world. Groucho's autobiography was funny and wonderful but left me wanting a clearer and more cohesive chronology. Harpo's writing doesn't have anywhere near the immediate humorous punch that characterized Groucho's, yet most of the situations described are quite funny enough in their own right to carry the day regardless of the writing style.If you love all things Marx, read Groucho's autobio first and then read Harpo Speaks! to fill in the details.
Book Review: Genius!
Summary: 5 Stars
Autobiographies, memoirs, and all other kinds of confessional writings have always been in a class of their own. There are no rules. No do's or don't's. It all depends on the author's gift to tell about his "journeys around the sun" in a way that makes the reader feel that he/she is having a good time, more or less like children listening to bedtime stories. Besides, show biz autobiographies are expected to be read by fans of the author's. Some readers may be attracted to them for different reasons, like learning more about the author's profession. Or perhaps on account of the author having taken part in a certain episode, or having something to tell about somebody else. But most readers can be counted for sure to be fans of the author's. That, in a way, adds a complication to the project of writing such a book. If a biographer doesn't do a good job, fans become frustrated inasmuch as they had expected more than what they got. But then, all they have to do is wait a little longer, and surely another book will come out to make amends for the earlier one.
And what about autobiographies, memoirs, and the like? With them it's all or nothing at all. Very few books can be more frustrating than a poor autobiography, in the same way as very few can be more delicious than a successful one. Fans expect their idols to display in their accounts of their own lives the same qualities of humor, lyricism, sensitivity, and sheer intelligence that made them be loved by so many people all over the world. When it happens, the book invariably stays in print for decades. When it doesn't, it dies the death. Not for anything "HARPO SPEAKS!" has been around for almost fifty years, the *sixteenth* printing having come out in 2010. Here is a gem of a book, one that couldn't possibly be more in accordance to everything fans might expect from Harpo Marx revisiting his own past. Credit must surely be given to his collaborator, Rowland Barber, who did a marvelous job of putting together Harpo's reminiscences. But this is unmistakably Harpo ... speaking! It becomes easy to understand why he was such a special part of the Marxes magic. His perception of life and the human condition is that of a genius. The book succeeds most spectacularly in preserving the essence of that genius. Needless to say, it's a must for anyone who loves The Marx Brothers. But beyond the realms of fandom, "HARPO SPEAKS!" should be read by anyone interested in what an extraordinary thing human life can be.
-- Leonardo Thierry (waitsfortherain@gmail.com)
Book Review: Great book, horrid review...
Summary: 5 Stars
From the Amazon review above:
"To Marx Brothers fans who have yet to read this book: Put it off as long as you can, because once you are finished, you will wish you could read it again for the first time."
This is perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever read in my entire life. What a douche.