Hi
folks,
Off
the beaten track a bit today. It seems today’s writers are just a bit too
polite. Nobody wants to say someone is a twit even when it’s obvious. I kind of
liked the “good old days” when writers would talk about other writers they didn’t
like or respect, before that monstrosity that undermines free speech called
being “politically correct” took hold and silenced opinion.
Opinion
is what writers should be about. We’re about the only ones who halfway express
ours nowadays. You can’t find a politician who does, can you? At least one you
can believe…
Just
want to share what some writers of yore used to say about their peers and other
literary matters. I got these from one of my favorite books, W.O.W. (Writers On Writing) accumulated and edited by Jon Winokur.
“The
cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to
fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.” Edmund Wilson
“I
am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters of
it is gibberish. However, I must crush down those thoughts otherwise the dove
of peace will shit on me.” Noel Coward on Edith Sitwell.
“If
it were ever thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I
would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet,
hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding-forth old bore who
expected every hero-worshiping adenoidal little twerp of a student-poet to hang
on his every word I never saw.” James Dickey
(My
favorite)
“One
must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens without
laughing.” Oscar Wilde
“Henry
James had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.” T.S. Eliot
“Henry
James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.” William Faulkner
“Mr.
Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.” Oscar Wilde
“I
am reading Henry James… and fell myself as one entombed in a block of smooth
amber.” Virginia Woolf
“I
was reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally
defective.” Evelyn Waugh
“He
writes plays for the ages—the ages between five and twelve.” George Jean Nathan
on George Bernard Shaw
“English
literature’s performing flea.” Sean O’Casey on P.G. Wodehouse
“Freud
Madox Fraud.” Osbert Sitwell
“I
loathe you. You revolt me stewing in your consumption… the Italians were quite
right to having nothing to do with you. You are a loathsome reptile—I hope you will
die.” D.H. Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield
Rebecca
West: “I’ve never been able to do just one draft. Do you know anyone who can?”
Interviewer:
“I think D.H. Lawrence did.”
Rebecca
West: “You could often tell.”
“When
his cock wouldn’t stand up, he blew his head off. He sold himself a line of
bullshit and bought it.” Germaine Greer on Ernest Hemingway
“Hemingway’s
remarks are not literature.” Gertrude Stein
“He
was the critics’ darling because he never changed style, theme nor story. He
made no experiments in thinking nor emotion.” John Steinbeck on Ernest
Hemingway
“I
detest him, but I was certainly under his spell when I was very young, as we
all were. I thought his prose was perfect—until I read Stephen Crane and
realized where he got it from.” Gore Vidal on Ernest Hemingway
“You
know the beginning of Gatsby, the
little frontispiece? They say that Fitzgerald made that up. I always thought
that was such a great thing to do—make up a quote and pretend it really
inspired you.” Nora Ephron
“Could
Faulkner find a publisher now?” Annie Dillard
“I’m
told, on very good authority, that he hasn’t stopped writing at all. That he’s
written at least five or six short novels and that all of them have been turned
down by The New Yorker. And that all
of them are very strange and about Zen Buddhism.” Truman Capote on J.D.
Salinger
“That’s
not writing, that’s typing.” Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac
“Phillip
Roth is a marvelous writer but I’d hate to shake hands with him.” Jacqueline
Suzann after reading Portnoy’s Complaint
“He’s a bad
novelist and a fool. The combination usually makes for great popularity in the
U.S.” Gore Vidal on Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“Asking
a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it
feels about dogs.” John Osorne
“I
don’t see how you can write anything of value if you don’t offend someone.”
Marvin Harris
Hope
you enjoyed these!
Blue
skies,
Les
Posts
6 comments:
Oh I absolutely love these quotes, Les! :D Thank you.
“I don’t see how you can write anything of value if you don’t offend someone.” Marvin Harris
Most writers nowadays are too preoccupied with knitting their network, they forget that remarkable people and truly remarkable art are never pleasing, never safe, and always piss people off.
Well-said, Veronica! You get it. That's the biggest compliment I can give. We are so concerned with people's feelings that we no longer are as concerned with the truth. We just want to be "liked." It's kind of sad... There are so few true rebels these days.
John Osbourne's comment about critics is the one I like the most.
Most writers like that one, B.R.! Me, too!
“That’s not writing, that’s typing.” Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac, is my favourite quotation from your list.
The truth in it still stands sternly on this very day. Tis like you said, Les, "We are so concerned with people's feelings that we no longer are as concerned with the truth. We just want to be "liked." It's kind of sad... There are so few true rebels these days." I feel some novelists, nowadays, are considered weak writers, because they want too much of an emotional response; and therefore will try to hard to gain approval from a lot of people. Some pretend to be rebels nowadays to be called different in order to be liked. See? Why no be a rebel. Period!
That is what I took from the above quote. Thanks for this post, Les.
Thanks, Ty-shaun. My sentiments, exactly!
Post a Comment