If a less ironic book exists, I haven’t found it. But it’s the pervasiveness of irony and its less intelligent cousin, sarcasm, that sends me back to Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson. Maybe it’s the combination of splitting my life between the South, the Midwest and Northern California? Maybe the urban areas I have chosen have been too earnest? Maybe I’m just square. All the cleverness and swift movement, unless I’m unpacking it-which I do, as any responsible cultural observer does, I do!-feels more like distraction than even entertainment. What tires me, and what makes me-lonely?-is terminal irony. And like the Monty Python movies popular during my junior high and high school years (classics! my friends insist), it’s endlessly quotable when conversation lags. It’s often funny, it pays homage to comedy gone by, it’s observant, it highlights personal awkwardness. Thanks to caller ID, for a long decade I got “Hello, Newman,” every time I reached out to touch someone.

And my last name is Pneuman, pronounced in this country NEW-man, just like one of the show’s most comically repulsive recurring characters. I’ve been impressed by the way the show appeals to folks across all the demographics I’ve been involved with-from writers to marketers, from paralegals to academics, from the guys who changed my oil to the waitstaff at Bouchon in Napa Valley, everyone around me quoted the show, referred to the show, had an opinion about Kramer’s genius physical comedy and Jerry’s deadpan.

I watched it quite a bit (in-laws, no cable) and got tickled, sometimes. I’ll go out on a limb, here, as the only person I know who doesn’t love Seinfeld.

Winesburg ohio book review