The writing in the witty and waggish With One Eye Open, a collection of Polly Frost’s humor pieces, seems to sometimes — not to put too fine an exclamation point on it – come from the perspective of “the human equivalent of a Jack Russell terrier!!”
Sorry to be so upfront, but I feel I can take such reviewing liberties because the author herself has taken the courageous and confessional step in admitting, in the teachable moments of the chapter “Goodbye!” how the use of the exclamation mark(s!) has come back into heavy rotation today among those who have given up the charade of dignity or self-respect for antics akin to yapping, palpitating poodles!!!
Frost of course considers the influence and of modern-age Facebook, Twitter, and email communications when, say, she has to gauge a friend's mood if he or she seems insufficiently emphatic: “Why didn’t they write ‘Hi Polly!!!!’?” And are they being sarcastic if they simply write ‘Congratulations.’ rather than ‘Congratulations!!!!!!!!?’”
But Frost, who has been called "the Edith Wharton of her generation," certainly enters uncharted territory when exploring academic terrain, though the use of the exclamation point may tend to punctuate and add novelty to the study of hundred-year-old American literature:
And when I read books now, I find myself beginning to wonder what Henry James was thinking when he wrote: ‘Live all you can – it’s a mistake not to.’ Dude, it should be: ‘Live all you can!!!!! It’s a mistake not to!!!!!!’ Then the reader will go, ‘Awesome! I’m there with you, Henry! Rock on with The Ambassadors!”
In the Preface to One Eye, we ourselves get a brief but two-eyed peek at what Frost — once she had emerged from the high seriousness of being the “Edward D. Wood Jr. of child creators” — was thinking after her young adult hopes of earning Chekhov or Dostoevsky status were questioned, and her avante garde short story reading was shot down by a giggling creative writing class. (The experimental short story was called “Untitled,” but I wonder if it might have had more mass appeal as “Untitled!!”) However, as so often happens, an astute teacher, impressed with another side of Polly, sensed a different path for the hot-under-the-collar scholar, telling her not to waste her time trying to write literary fiction. Because “you might be able to do something with funny.”
Indeed, With One Eye Open is testament to that sagacious suggestion, a collection of 25 short stories and pieces, the bulk of which were written in the last two years, appearing in such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Narrative magazine, while being anthologized in two of The New Yorker “best of” humor collections, as well as the just-released Humor Me anthology edited by Ian Frazier. Such a variety of outlets is matched by the array of topics, from blogaholism, to iPuppies, to the inner voices you really don’t want to hear as you somehow find yourself paragliding down to earth in a kicking-and-screaming fulfillment of a New Year’s Resolution, to parents on Facebook posting photos of the kids, to the new Paleo-diet-and-fitness craze, to how friends get together today, and the diagnosis of Intrusive Amateur Therapist Disorder.
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