Saturday, December 14, 2013

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - short story and movie


The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
By James Thurber

An ineffectual dreamer or someone with a rich imagination enlivening his day? 

"We only live once, Sergeant,” said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. “Or do we?” He poured another brandy and tossed it off.

The way I had heard people speak of this story, I thought it must be a novel. Then I received the book and found 32 pages with large type and double spacing.  I pasted it into Microsoft Word and found a word count of 2,083.  It reads so quickly, you wouldn’t even think it was that long.

Pssst… you can read it here -> The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

The story opens with Mitty imagining that he is a Commander on a ship breaking through ice, only to be rudely awakened to his wife demanding he slow down because he’s driving too fast.

“You were up to fifty-five,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five.”

Walter drops his wife at her hair appointment and she admonishes him to buy some overshoes and wear his gloves.

As he drives past a hospital, Mitty is drawn into an operating room drama in his head. Parking the car doesn’t go so well in that frame of mind.

He manages the errands his wife sent him on then ends up sitting in chair, off on another adventure, where his wife finds him. They set out but she leaves him standing outside a store where he finds himself facing a firing squad.

I’ve heard it said that the average man lives one life but the man who reads lives many.  In this story, Walter is writing his own stories. The problem is that it interferes with living his own life.

No one can live all the things they thought about becoming as a kid. The sad part may be that he may not have gotten to do anything at all in his life.

The idea inspired a movie in 1947 starring Danny Kaye and this year a new movie starring Ben Stiller will come out on Christmas Day. It’s only loosely related to the book.  The short story portrays someone who dreams his way through life, making his boring everyday life more interesting. The movie seems to ask the question – what if Walter Mitty didn’t remain an ineffectual dreamer? What if he finally fulfilled his desire for action and adventure?


The movie, set to come out Christmas day, looks amazing. My husband and I are eager to see it. Read the story.  Then go see the movie and find out what someone imagined for Walter Mitty.