James Thurber - a softer, rounder Sagittarian wit

James Thurber

Born 8 December 1894

in Columbus, Ohio, at 11.55pm.

Here we have "a horse of a different colour".

After Dorothy Parker's acid wit, I get a much softer feeling from James Thurber's writing. He's more amiable, less sharply cynical. Even his cartoons have a "rounded" comfortable feel to them. He has a keen eye for the absurdities of life, which I find most endearing.

So, what sets James Thurber apart from both Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Parker?

Thurber has Virgo rising, if the time of birth is accurate, Virgo's ruler Mercury is in 3rd house of communication, in Sagittarius with Sun conjunct Venus nearby. Here's one big difference from the two previous writers' charts. Lewis and Parker's Suns are both conjunct Mars. A personality with Sun/Venus conjunction is almost certainly going to come over as pleasant rather than abrasive, and Sagittarian Sun, is bright, expansive jovial, and philosophical rather than negative. Thurber's 3 Sagittarian planets are in 3rd house of communication, opposite Pluto and Neptune both in Gemini . Already there are a lot of indications that communication of one kind or another will figure largely in this person's life. Jupiter lies in gentle Cancer. Moon in Taurus (8th) is opposing Saturn in Scorpio(2nd), I'm not sure how this would have materialised - there's not a lot of detail about his personal life available on-line. James, like Dorothy Parker, has a Yod in his natal chart, this one points to Mercury, the sextile between Moon and Jupiter "feeding" it via the two inconjunct aspects - again I wish I were more experienced, but somehow this tells me that writing and drawing were a release point for Thurber, a release from emotional tensions.

James Thurber grew up in Ohio, lost an eye as a result of a childhood accident, and later in life lost his sight entirely. His writing career began locally as a newspaper reporter. He soon moved on to New York and became part of the New Yorker's staff.

It is said that his cartoons became well known only because his friend pulled some of them from his trash bin one day and decided to get them published - people liked them.

Dorothy Parker, another friend, said of his cartoons that they have the "semblance of unbaked cookies" - which is true enough !

Thurber is described in one article as shy and sometimes subject to depression.

This could well have been as a result of his partial blindness, and underlines how strong the influence of his Sagittarian planets must have been, for him to maintain his bubbling sense of the ridiculous in spite of his difficulties. He wrote many short stories, children's stories, and adult fables such as the tale of "The Unicorn in the Garden". "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" published in 1941 is possibly his best-remembered story, it was later made into a film starring Danny Kaye as the famous daydreamer, who now merits his own entry in English-language dictionaries.

James Thurber died in 1961, of complications following pneumonia. It is not known whether he succumbed to alcohol as did a few of his contemporaries, but one of his quotations touches on this subject:

"Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober."

A couple more quotations from Mr Thurber, demonsrating his philosophical nature, and his witty self-depretation"

"Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man"

[To an admirer who told him that his output read very well in French translation]:

"Yes, my works lose something in the original."

I think I'd have liked James Thurber, the person.