Comments on: “The Bus” by Shirley Jackson

By: Bob McKenna

Bob McKenna — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:51:19 +0000

Possibly not germane but I am looking for the author of short stories published in the Post that featured a German farmer named Heinrich Von Schnobble and were written with comments by the main character in broken English and garbled Pennsylvania Dutch. —– Read these as a child and greatly enjoyed puzzeling through things like “oinken porkers” und der like.

By: UnKnown

UnKnown — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:42:49 +0000

The story was a sucess and I liked it

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:41:19 +0000

This was an amazing story and movie that was made. Thank you.

By: Dick Bloom

Dick Bloom — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:43:59 +0000

Thanks for Shirley Jackson’s “The Bus”, which like the Wodehouse story elsewhere in this issue is an allusion in “Arsenic and Old Lace”. Elaine Harper is the name of the woman Mortimer Brewster marries at the beginning of the film and, presumably, also the play, which I haven’t read in forty years and don’t remember as distinct from the film. “Arsenic and Old Lace”–its initials, by the way, are AOL– was written in 1939 by the American Joseph Kesselring and opened on Broadway in January, 1941. (Just FYI, arsenic is element #33 in the Periodic Table of the Elements. As for the phrase “you can’t go home again”, that is the title of one of American author Thomas Wolfe’s best known novels.) The story also reminds me of two other films, “North by Northwest” and “Psycho”. The toys in the closet that provide E.T. camouflage in the eponymous film may also allude to “The Bus”.

By: Ron

Ron — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:26:07 +0000

Thanks. Perfect for Halloween.