Review: Getting Even

Getting Even by Woody Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, I think this is my favorite Woody Allen humor anthology - it still makes me laugh. "The Metterling Lists" with its plot of supposedly intellectually brilliant people acting like still imbeciles, unable to handle basic tasks like socks still hits my funny bone, like Monty Python's "Philosopher Football" skit. "Viva Vargas!" has a lot in common with one of of my favorite Allen films, Bananas . Indeed, The mock philosophical arguments of "My Philosophy" here was later used in the films Bananas and Love and Death. As someone that has actually played chess-by-mail and also likes philosophy-based humor, "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers" still works for me on this re-reading of the enjoyable audiobook performed by Allen himself. "Mr. Big" is an excellent climax, a parody of the style and structure of hardboiled detective stories flavored with assaults on philosophy and deism.

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