How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes

by Will Cuppy

Book Overview

This collection of "delirious birds, beasts and all manner of funny critters from Man to Amoeba," with "pictures by Jack," is an irreverent and thoroughly unscientific study of mankind and his animal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156792297X
• ISBN13: 9781567922974
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The Hobo Philosopher

There is only one way to read this book by Willy Cuppy and that is ... very slowly. His mind is obviously traveling at warp speed. I read one entry each evening and that was it. I did much better with "The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody" and "How to Be a Hermit." Willy takes "clever" to the Nth degree. I think there was a competition going on back in Willy's day. People like P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Parker and others were in a pitched battle for who could be the most clever. They were all good but Willy was in a class by himself. He is cleaver on top of cleaver. Dorothy was once asked to use Horticulture in a sentence. She said: "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think." Very cleaver. I wouldn't buy this book, if you are hoping to learn something - other than how to write cleverly. Unless you are very smart you won't know what is cleaver from what might be factual ... but I don't think it really matters. I gave this book to my wife to read. My wife is a very practical, sensible woman - not very funny. Two days later she handed it back to me. "This is stupid," she said. I said, "Yes, that is what I was wondering about." "You had to wonder?" she asked. I'm still wondering. I keep reading Willy and I'm still laughing ... and wondering. But most of the time I don't really know what it is that I am laughing about and that's what makes me wonder. I hate to do this but here goes ... a couple of quotes. "Sir Arthur Keith says that Pithecanthropus erectus was human in everything but the brain. Well, what did he expect?" Now I suppose the above might be funnier if I knew who Sir Arthur Keith was or what Pithecanthropus erectus was/is ... but does it matter? The Peking Man: "He was discovered near Peking or Peiping and was named Sinanthropus pekenensis to keep certain persons from calling him Peiping Tom." Yes, once again? Willy Cuppy eventually killed himself. He suffered from depression. No one usually mentions this but as I read his books that fact is always in the back of my mind. There is a tendency to make some "cleaver" remark about this fact, but that is one of the problems with trying to be cleaver when you really aren't. Writers beware. Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher: "Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.." "A Summer with Charlie" Salisbury Beach, Lawrence YMCA "A Little Something: Poetry and Prose "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" Novel - Lawrence, Ma. "The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column. "Noble Notes on Famous Folks" Humor - satire - facts. "America on Strike" American Labor - History

Revenge of the Bird Hater

This is a book of snippets about birds and monkeys, plus mammals and even a few primitive people. Cuppy was a notorious bird hater, so you can imagine how hilariously he deals with them. It must have done him good to write this one! This is certainly not his best book, but contains many quotable lines. For example, "All modern men are descended from a wormlike creature, but it shows more on some people." Or, "It is a good thing to keep out of the Arctic if you look like a seal." The illustrations are not as high quality as those of his other books, but are appropriately bizarre. With Cuppy you really can't go wrong. Another very funny book, but not recommended for oversensitive bird lovers.

How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes

Not as funny as Cuppy's "The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody", but what is?

Early Cuppy -- Better Than Most Other's Later Work

Will Cuppy was an essayist who was witty, learned, and humorous. Nowadays, he's nearly forgotten, more's the pity. Cuppy conducted in-depth research in all his subjects, and then used the results to provide very humorous results. This is onwe of his earliest works, and is well worth the read. He did other essays on naturalistic subjects, and all of them are amusing, some nearly 70 years after being written.

A masterpiece of very dry humor and amazing facts

Cuppy again produced another largely unheralded masterpiece with this book. His humor is extremely subtle in many places, which may explain some of this neglect. His method was to read everything, from the best known to the most obscure, then write an essay of about two pages. At his best, he can have you laughing again and again. Just consider the footnote that ends his very short essay on the Cro-Magnon Man: "Perhaps we of today are inclined to overestimate the intellectual powers of the Cro-Magnons, who lived at least 25,000 years ago. As some of my readers may recall, even so recently as twenty or thirty years ago people knew hardly anything. For earlier data one has but to glance at the family album."What else can we add, except to note that he covers the other primates, various birds, fair to medium mammals and awful mammals? This is one book not to miss.