A Word In Edgewise: Lights in the Darkness

In difficult times — and I think these qualify — it’s important to have periods of respite. Not forgetting, not denying, nor covering up, but carving oneself a space of physical and emotional downtime now and again, before reentering the fray.

Exercise, of course, is widely recommended by healers of the body and spirit. But, as one born to be sedentary, since childhood, I’ve found solace in books. Humorous books without whitewash; books with a certain acknowledgment of life’s shadows. I retreat into these volumes and close the door behind me for restoration, not denial. So, keep nourished, get enough sleep, exercise in a healthful manner, but, when clinging to the thinnest strand of your last nerve, here are three writers whose words have kept me afloat:

Don Marquis (1878-1937), “the lives and times of archy & mehitabel.” Lower case and lack of italics here are intentional, faithful to the original author’s outpourings, written by night on blank sheets of paper that journalist Marquis swears he himself rolled into his typewriter before leaving his office at the New York Evening Sun for the day and collected every morning — now filled by Archy. A cockroach today, Archy had been — in another lifetime — a vers libre poet. He has much to say about present life and the world around him, and he taps it out nightly. Marquis received the first messages in 1916, and Archy plunged on through the alcohol-less Depression years, observing:

prohibition makes you
want to cry
into your beer
and denies you the beer
to cry into

Lines were of necessity short. As a cockroach, he had to dive down headfirst from the top of the typewriter to strike each key, then clamber back up and repeat. The shift key was out. Among others, Archy was the wary friend of alley cat Mehitabel, claimed to have once been Cleopatra, now an ardent free spirit. “Toujours gai, kid, toujours gai” was her motto.

one life up and the next life
down archy but always a lady
through it all…

Saki (H.H. Munro, 1870-1916) brought a darker humor; his mordant short stories have hilarious comeuppances that leave you gasping… removing one from the uncomfortable present without sugarcoating; engaging yet never letting one quite forget. In “Sredni Vashtar,” a little boy, tormented by a cruel aunt, prays for release to a caged feral ferret. Character Clovis Sangrail merited a volume of his own, a satiric prankster who observed, “I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.” Munro, at 45, elected to serve in WWI. Entrenched in France on November 14, 1916, he was spied by a sniper as he hissed to a comrade lighting a match, “Put out the bloody —.” Saki may be an acquired taste; I acquired it when I was 15, and have reread him ever since.

Of course, read most anything by P.G. Wodehouse. You may be familiar with Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, but there are the Blandings novels, the adventures of Psmith — a total of some 70 novels and 200 short stories. In the January 11, 2026, New York Times Book Review, actress Tilda Swinton, asked in a “By the Book” column, “What book would you elevate to the canon, and what book would you remove?” replied, “Not canon-savvy, sorry, but if P.G. Wodehouse ever gets left out, that’s not right.”

Keep on! Be “toujours gai, toujours gai” as Mehitabel would say… “there’s a dance in the old dame yet.”