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Quote of the Day: On Wheat and Chaff
Few American writers of the twentieth century so embody the quotably pungent and pithy in their prose as does Dorothy Rothschild Parker.
Google her name, and her often caustic, witty, gems just tumble out at you: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”–“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gave it to.”– “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B” (this from a review of a Katharine Hepburn performance in a Broadway play)–“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”–“What fresh hell is this?”–“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”–“I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”–“Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.” And perhaps my favorite, which I can’t even include here (no, it’s not the one about the girls at the Yale prom).
But the DP quote I’ve chosen for today is one I particularly love. It comes, as did so much of her output, from a review of an item of cultural interest, in this case, a particular book:
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”*
So, come on. Haven’t we all come across at least one of these in our lives? Which weighty tomes, or bits of literary fluff, would you put on the list? Or better yet, fling across the room, if you had the chance (less effective, more expensive, and not as much fun with e-books, which don’t land with the same satisfying thump, it’s true).
I’ll start: Just about anything with Jack Kerouac’s name on it (self-indulgent and creepy). Lady Chatterley’s Lover (tedious, overwrought, and laughable purple prose). Fifty Shades of Grey (unbelievably badly written). Any Dan Brown book, starting with The DaVinci Code (Can’t keep them straight, one from the other. I suppose if you overlook the abysmal writing, the lack of character development, and the ludicrous and inconsistent plot twists, what’s left might be worth saving).
You can have my share of any and all of these.
So. Your turn. What are your least favorite novels of all time?
*In its most quoted form, it’s generally assumed to be a paraphrase of the sentiment of the review. No one has been able to find exactly these words, in exactly this order, in her writings. But, if she didn’t say it in precisely this way, she should have.
Published in General
Anything by Dostoevsky. I can’t stand self-absorbed, neurotic people in real life. Avoid them like the plague. I’ve never finished reading a Dostoevsky novel; and after 3 or 4 different ones, no more. Why is he considered great? For the same reason I’ve never finished watching a Woody Allen film. Why is he considered great? Makes my skin crawl.
But Dorothy Parker is great!
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.
Parker, when asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence said, “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”
Yes!. But that’s not my favorite one of all time, either.
The thing with me and Dorothy Parker quotes is: The last one I read is my favorite.
I love Dostoevsky. I got to him late. Dostoevsky’s stuff was so good that I’m tempted to take another run at Tolstoy.
Usually I finish the books that I seriously start. The good ones are their own reward. The bad ones serve as an object lesson in what not to do. Some small number have had their aerodynamic qualities field-tested. There was one novel picked up in an airport that featured a V-22 Osprey on the cover that also featured the uninformed opinions of the author on the “military-industrial complex.” It had my eyes rolling so hard that I could see into another dimension.
It flew pretty well, all things considered.
I’ve gotta go with Atlas Shrugged (standing by for thrown objects). I really wanted to embrace it but Ms. Rand virtually drained my life force through her verbosity. Why say in one or two sentences honing your point to a razor fine edge like that of a samurai craftsmen folding the orange burning steel again and again until it’s perfect in its form and function when you can lay it out in a paragraph like a fine line thrown like a fly fisherman with such adeptness and accuracy that the clear running water itself, crisp against the fisherman’s pale, translucent skin, notices not that it has been invaded but instead embraces the line and pulls it along farther and farther out until it can neither tell where the water ends and the line begins…….
Call me Ignorant, but Moby Dick.
Oh, and great post @she, I would love to have a conversation with Miss Dorthy over a few drinks, she’d be a hoot.
However, you probably just described a large percentage of the most successful writers/artists/musicians through the ages. (Some might even argue these are two of the necessary traits!)
Great Expectations, Twilight, and any historical fiction with blatantly bad facts.
East of Eden, John Steinbeck.
“Women in Love” is also unbelievably awful.
Rand wrote a shorter story called “Anthem”, and it’s better than her other stuff – which, given that other stuff, isn’t ringing endorsement for “Anthem”, either. I dunno whether “better because shorter” comes about because it’s more focused, or simply because there’s less of it ;-P
Funnily, Hemingway, who prided himself on terseness, kinda gets on my nerves the same way Rand does.
Ulysses, by James Joyce. Chaos masquerading as a plot.
I have tried to get through the approximately 265,000 words no less than five times. (The author himself famously said he put in the endless enigmas and puzzles to “keep the professors busy for centuries, arguing over what it meant.”) Not me. I’m through. It felt good to close the book for the last time…”with great force.” (Thank you, DP!)
The whole JRR Tolkien lot…I’m done with it. There, I said it. :-D (Oh, and Douglas Adams and his towel, now that I think about it.)
And I just might join you, @dajoho. After all, as the great lady is often credited (perhaps apocryphally) with saying first, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”
In case anyone’s missed it, this delightful Dan Brown sendup never fails to bring a smile to my face. Sample:
Go on, read the whole thing!
I recommend bringing provisions, toiletries, sleeping bag, and a very comfortable chair to one of those Bloomsday events where a serial reading is performed and one doesn’t actually have to read the book.
Well, maybe not. I managed to duck going to this a couple of years ago with no regrets.
Yikes!
Wow. That actually caused my respect for Barry to go down.
I wouldn’t have thought that possible.
Much as as I love you, dear Nanda, I cannot ‘like’ this comment. Just can’t. Sorry.
What an absolutely wonderful comment! Outstanding!
My staff is wondering why I’m giggling behind my computer…
I was supposed to read and write an essay on Ulysses for an English class. I read some reviewer saying it was a metaphor for different body parts, so my essay was about how it was about a colonoscopy.
My wife was at an independent bookstore she wanted to support and bought a big-deal novel for me. It was award-winning. It covered a period in history I am interested in. It supposedly was the great literary masterwork of the age. It was also being made into a TV series by one of the cable channels because it was too naughty for broadcast. This abomination to the written word goes by the name of Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel, and by the time I struggled through the third chapter of atrocious writing, I did test its aerodynamic properties. Utter crap. Poor use of point of view and antecedents. Poor and sloppy writing. Don’t get me started. Ms. Mantel is certainly no Dorothy Parker.
However, this conversation is part of the Quote of the Day Series, and just let me say, “Baby, you can quote Dorothy Parker at me anytime, if you know what I mean.” We still have a few openings in the September schedule, and I am sure that some of you are now excited at the opportunity to fill those holes. Why not go here right now and sign up?
Thank you! Yes, it’s awful, isn’t it.
Truth to tell, I don’t know beyond chapter three. I was screaming at that point, and the men with the white coats took it away from me as they gave me an awesome white coat of my own and some nice medication.
Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley once rented an office together. On the door was painted, “Park Bench Inc.”
Such good choices here. I don’t think I’ve disagreed with one yet.
I have to say, not to pick on Dan Brown (but I’m going to) that the parody almost made me cry. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but on top of everything else, Brown’s representation of his characters as geniuses, and as the smartest people in the world in their field,when, from beginning to end of the book, they do nothing but make one bone-headed move after another, irks me no end.
There’s one book (it doesn’t matter which one, they’re all the same) where our brave hero, Robert WhatHisFace, the smartest man in the world, is holed up (again) in a cramped apartment in (pick one) [Italy, France, Scotland, it matters not] hiding out from one or another of the gangs of violent thugs that transport themselves from volume to volume, seemingly for no other purpose but to get in the way of what passes for the plot. Naturally, Robert is there with the beautiful, mysterious and possibly corrupt, smartest-and-most-brilliant-woman-in-her-field. They’re under surveillance. They’re being followed. They’re hiding out.
What’s the first thing Robert does?
Gets out his laptop and checks his email.
My brain screams, “No! No! Don’t do it!” But he doesn’t listen (because he’s much smarter than I am).
The motorcycle gangs with the automatic weapons show up momentarily thereafter.
Argh.
PS to previous comment: Of course, there is one I disagree with. You know who you are.