“…In her zeal to demonstrate that nothing lives except in the imagination, Miss Young, with superb virtuosity, may have written a novel that in the profoundest sense does not exist.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don’t care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation.”
My Hates (1866)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“The only novel (1960) by the US writer Harper Lee (1926-2016), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman and its aftermath are seen through the eyes of Scout, the six-year-old daughter of the white defense lawyer, Atticus Finch. Though clearly innocent, the man is found guilty and is subsequently shot 17 times by prison guards while, it is claimed, he was trying to escape. The editor of a local paper writes a courageous leader comparing the death to ‘the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children.’ The common, or northern, mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a noted songbird and mimic, and its range extends from the northern USA to Mexico. It particularly favors suburban habitats, and sometimes sings at night. A film version (1962) was directed by Robert Mulligan, with an Oscar-winning performance by Gregory Peck as Finch.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“(Greek ‘back-timing’) In literature anachronisms may be used deliberately to distance events and to underline a universal sense of verisimilitude and timelessness—to prevent something being ‘dated.’ Shakespeare adopted this device several times. Two classic examples are the references to the clock in Julius Caesar and to billiards in Antony and Cleopatra. Shaw also does it Androcles and the Lion when the Emperor is referred to as ‘The Defender of the Faith.’”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
“James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice stirred up something of a sensation when it was first published in 1934. It wasn’t about the postal service, it was about sex. Cain explained that he had given his book its odd title because before it was accepted for publication it was rejected many times, and each day that the postman brought a letter of rejection he rang twice.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“(II gattopardo, 1958; tr 1960) A historical novel by Giuseppi Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa. It describes the impact of Garibaldi’s invasion of Sicily and the subsequent unification of Italy on an aristocratic Sicilian family who had flourished under the Bourbon kings. The novel’s depiction of the failure of the Risorgimento created heated political debates when it was first published. However, the controversy subsided and the book was widely recognized as a penetrating psychological study of an age, written in a highly symbolic and richly poetic style.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Did Alice Walker start out by writing fiction or poetry? The first published work of the poet and novelist was a book of poetry: Once: Poems (1968). She followed up soon after, however, with a novel: The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970).
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
“Beelzebub * Moloch * Chemos * Peor * Baalem * Ashtoreth/Astarte * Thammuz/Adonis * Dagon * Rimmon * Osiris * Isis * Horus * Belial
In Book One of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan, having been expelled from Heaven, falls ‘nine times the space that measures day and night’ into Hell’s cavern. In this ‘dismal situation waste and wild, a dungeon horrible on all sides round as one great furnace flamed’ he rears up from a pool of liquid fire to offer words of comfort to the fallen cherubs. One by one, Milton identifies and to a certain extent creates the thirteen chief captains of Hell, from his own selective reading of the mythology of the ancient Near East, who follow ‘their great Emperor’s call’ in order to stand beside him. These Peers of Hell are a bad lot–‘besmeared with blood,’ fomentors of ‘lustful orgies’ and ‘wanton passions of the sacred porch’–and summon myriad other fallen angels to arms with a shout that ‘frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.'”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities, poetry
“Take your long novel down the street to my friend William Heinemann who specializes in fiction, and sit down and write a play for me–I think you’d do that well.”
*
“The author writes to please himself rather than to please the novel reading public and accordingly his novel lacks popular qualities…the average reader may be pardoned if he fails to become interested in the intricate family relations involved in the opening chapters of the book…from beginning to end there is not one really admirable character, and it is hard to feel sympathy even for those who undergo sorrow and suffering.”
*
“…the slight plot, the fact that all the characters are distinctly British, both seem to make it clear that the volume would not have any real sale in this country….”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
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