Douglas M. Parker

I am struggling to know as to where the blame lies for this being a poor biography but, I am leaning towards the author.

I absolutely adore Ogden Nash's poetry and I was much looking forward to learning more about the man. It seems hard to believe that a man who produced such humorous poetry could be a boring chap, but that is certainly what one would adduce from this book. Nash's birth and youth are covered in thirty pages, mostly taken up with the terrible treatment, allegedly, handed out by the US government to his father's business. One learns nothing about the boy, his family life and how this formed the man. Similarly, the depression, which must have shaped Nash, striking just as Nash is starting a family of his own, is mentioned as a blip.

I really cannot say that reading this book has, in any way, enhanced my understanding of, or pleasure in, the poems of Ogden Nash. Fortunately, they are so good that they will survive this!… (mehr)