Book Review: Born Standing Up
Feb 21st, 2008 by jeremy
Book eight of 52 books in 52 weeks
At age ten Steve Martin started working in Disneyland , a first selling programs, then moving on to what he thought he’d like to do for th rest of his life, magic. Born Standing up cover his life to his first film, The Jerk. I’m too young to remember Steve Martin as a stand-up comedian, I only know him from great movies and appearances on Saturday Night Live. His description of his career is fascinating, moving from hippy comedian/magician, to numerous television appearances, to a clean-cut superstar that was performing in front of 20,000 people a night.
He talks about how he developed jokes and why he felt like like none of his jokes should be a cheap laugh. He repeats many of the jokes from throughout his career, and most of them still stand up. The book isn’t all humor though. Many of the early chapters deal with his family, including the distant relationship he had through most of his life. His father also had dreams of becoming a star, and never understood Martin’s style of humor. The eventual coming together of the two is a touching part of the book that made me appreciate his talented description of the conversations he had with his father at the end of his life.
He’s a talented writer, the book isn’t a list of jokes, but a thoughtful biography. I’d love to read more of his books (he’s written collections of fiction and a couple of bestsellers including Shopgirl).
Rating B
My other book reviews are here
Other reviews from people doing 52 books in 52 weeks
- Jaime reviews The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Heliologue reviews The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel by Judith and Neil Morgan, and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
- Natasha reviews Austenland by Shannon Hale and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.
- Kevin reviews The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
I just read an excerpt from this book in the Smithsonian magazine. I thought his approach to creating jokes that will be funny when you hear them, and then when you think back on them was interesting. I tried reading Shopgirl but couldn’t get past all the profanity in it.
I noticed you comment on the DaVinci Code over at Modest Construct. Any plans to write a review, it sounds like you’re the only person I know that didn’t enjoy it.