The Anatomy of Harpo Marx

by Wayne Koestenbaum

Overview

The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx’s physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo’s chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute—his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo’s body—its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, “cute” pathos, and more. In a virtuosic performance, Koestenbaum’s text moves gracefully from insightful analysis to cultural critique to autobiographical musing, and provides Harpo with a host of odd bedfellows, including Walter Benjamin and Barbra Streisand.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520269002
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/29/2012
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Wayne Koestenbaum is Distinguished Professor of Literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of thirteen books of criticism, poetry, and fiction, including a biography of Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

I. Early Ecstatic Emptiness
The Holy Fool Flees Language’s Stink Bomb: The Cocoanuts (1929)
Pinky, the Pointing Scapegoat, Lags Behind: Duck Soup (1933)
The Mad Mohel’s Goo-Goo Eyes of Monomaniacal Attunement: A Night at the Opera (1935)
Poppy Power; or, The Thick-Enough Art of Zombie Dumbfoundment: Animal Crackers (1930)

II. Later Astonishments
Fake Dead Jew as Cute Zoo-Idiot: Room Service (1938)
Passé Punchy’s Humiliated Buddy Huddle: At the Circus (1939)
Freeze Rusty’s Anal Rage in a Cozy Void: Go West (1940)
Lonely Wacky’s Incremental Lines of Flight: The Big Store (1941)
The Bubble-Blowing Demarcator Tickles Totality: A Night in Casablanca (1946)
Bulge, Glaze, Pause, Shock; or, The Bushy-Haired Ragpicker’s Burnt Offering: Love Happy (1949)

III. The Idiot Tumbles Back to the Beginning of Time
The Undeliverable Ice of Pinky’s Mom-Mouth: Horse Feathers (1932)
The Kippering, Bopping, Shushing, Bear-Hugging, Beard-Pulling Bustle: Monkey Business (1931)
The Pretzel Glimmer-Eye of Stuffy’s Stuttering Surge: A Day at the Races (1937)

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A zesty and deeply literate joy to read."—New Haven Review

"A charming and rigorous study."—Sight & Sound Magazine

"A fittingly zany, aphoristic, and meandering study of the great mime of Marx Brothers fame. . . . Koestenbaum's approach to Harpo makes for highly animated reading."—Bookforum

"Koestenbaum provides an informed, original, and near-obsessive assessment of all things Harpo."—Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

"Long ago, someone told Harpo to shut up"—but why did he listen? In this exhaustive critical study, Koestenbaum (Humiliation) looks with a sharp eye at the silent Marx Brother from every angle in an attempt to figure out what Harpo meant to say, and why he wouldn't use his speaking voice to say it. What is the meaning of Harpo's "infantile incomprehensibility?" Is it a rebuke? ("...rebuking himself for failing to speak, rebuking others for speaking, and rebuking the social contract for ignoring his existence"); self-mutilation? ("Afraid that Chico will say ‘shut up' again, Harpo shushes himself (self-mutilation, as if with a razor) in advance…"); rage? ("Harpo's silence contains rage against self and against unresponsive others…") But Koestenbaum doesn't just offer a critique of Harpo's silence, he celebrates it: "Harpo is on top…alone with the totality he has worked to create with pointing and honking and whistling and duck-mouthing…the totality that makes him momentarily king." Through thirteen chapters—one for each of Harpo's films—including dozens of illustrative film stills, Koestenbaum provides an informed, original, and near-obsessive assessment of all things Harpo. And, just as with Harpo himself, while it isn't always clear what Koestenbaum is trying to say—his verbose play-by-play of the silent star is challenging, to say the least—it's always worth trying to figure out. 388 b&w photos. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

A fittingly zany, aphoristic, and meandering study of the great mime of Marx Brothers fame. . . . Koestenbaum’s approach to Harpo makes for highly animated reading.

Bookforum - Noah Isenberg

A zesty and deeply literate joy to read.

New Haven Review - Jonathan Kiefer

A charming and rigorous study.

Sight & Sound Magazine - Brian Dillon

Provocative, original scholarship that lights a fire under the typically stodgy studies that we usually get from university press star biographies.

Oklahoman - Dennis King