Jonathan Winters (1925–2013)

Winters’ Tales: Stories and Observations for the Unusual (1987) by Jonathan Winters. This book is more than 45 years old so do not expect to see it in your local book store. It is a collection of the famed comedian’s writings on a variety of different topics, broken into five different sections. Those sections are: Unusual Stories, Animal Tales, Children’s Voices, Of Men And War and Observations. Each section averages about nine stories loosely based on the section title. A few of the stories are slightly humorous, some deeply ironic, a few interesting to some degree, a couple may be very self-reflective, but there is nothing here that is absolutely stellar.
If you come looking for Winters’ trademark broad, weird humor, look other places. These stories feel more like personal notes to oneself than an actual attempt at a cohesive book. Taken as a whole, they sadly do not add up to a very entertaining book. Individually you may find some of them striking, while almost all can be noted for their skewed perspective on life.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. If you want to know about the comedian, look to his vast list of performances or the record albums he produced. Don’t judge the performer by the writer.
I give it three stars just for the look into the non-performance portion of Jonathan Winters’ brain.… (mer)