As a child of parents who came of age during World War II, I suspect that Herb Gardner wrote this story from ethics and morals informed by his parents having lived through World War I, as my parents did. Having heard about the movie years ago from friends at college, I was uneasy finally seeing it today because its first impression on me was superficial. The age of Murray in 1965, when the movie was released, would have been known to most in the audience at that time as having been the age of the typical conscripted soldier in World War II. The fifties were a period of yearning for safety and normalcy for those who returned from the war, and many enjoyed the comforting effects of conformity and almost military routine in daily life, as depicted in the movie. It could not make soldiers forget the horrors of seeing their best friends blown to bits or of seeing skeletal prisoners, or buildings bombed to rubble like that of his neighborhood or stop the reminders of the fear that arises from the sound of guns firing --- and Murray may well not have had shell-shock, what we now call PTSD. But when he forgot what day it was on the train one day on his way to work, and stopped and focused on the exuberant unexpected and serendipity of human humor with Nick, he chose to stay with what would most easily keep him in the present and safe from the traumas of bad memory. His brother Arnold's being of a man with a wife and children and a job being the best he can be and proud enough of it to defend himself to Murray makes sense to me as commendable, because he has courage in living his ordinary life. It seems to me that Murray chose that, also.
Review of A Thousand Clowns
