“…he is like a man who is trying to run in a dozen directions at once, succeeding thereby merely in standing still and making a noise. Sometimes it is amusing noise and alive; often monotonous.”
V.S. Pritchett, The Spectator
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 found the novel tiresome because people never seemed to matter in the least; they would have gone down under any system, so why blame capitalism for their complete and appalling lack of character? Mr. Dos Passos’ America seems to me a figment of his own imagination, and I doubt the value of his reportage of our period.”
Herschel Bricknell, Review of Reviews
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
“The commonplaceness of the story is not alleviated in the slightest degree by any glimmer of imaginative insight on the part of the novelist. A skillful writer would be able to arouse an emotional reaction in the reader but at no moment does he leave him otherwise than cold and unresponsive. One feature of the novel stands out above all–the figure of Clyde Griffiths. If the novel were great, he would be a great character. As it is, he is certainly one of the most despicable creations of humanity that ever emerged from a novelist’s brain. Last of all, it may be said that Mr. Dreiser is a fearsome manipulator of the English language. His style, if style it may be called, is offensively colloquial, commonplace, and vulgar.”
Boston Evening Transcript
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, readings/research
(An old friend of mine who teaches at the college level emailed me over the weekend with questions about E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime. It has been more than 30 years since I read the novel, and my reading of it was no doubt colored and informed by the movie, which I saw before reading the book. In any case, her question sent me to my copy of Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia [Fourth Edition] for answers; I wrote it up, and post it here. This discourse also reminded me of Mr. Doctorow’s famously controversial commencement address at Brandeis University in 1989, which in our current political environment looks innocently prescient.)
“Ragtime (1975) A novel by E.L. Doctorow. Set in New York between the turn of the century and the beginning of World War I, the novel revolves around three interlocking groups of characters: a family of Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side, their upper-class WASP counterparts from New Rochelle, and a black piano player, Coalhouse Walker, and his wife. Walker, probably based on the character of rag composer Scott Joplin, is a proud black man who, as a result of racism and insults, is driven to desperate acts. The evocation of World War I is enriched by the the interaction of Doctorow’s characters with such real-life figures as Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Booker T. Washington, and C.G. Jung. Doctorow’s prose conveys a sense of his story by maintaining a contrapuntal, ragtime cadence.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, learning supports, united states history
I don’t know if anyone teaches her anymore, but in my high school in the 1970s, there was interest in Carson McCullers. In fact, if memory serves, some of our teachers at City School, which is now called Malcolm Shabazz City High School, used the stage adaptation of The Member of the Wedding for one of our school plays. I saw the film adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter just after high school, and later read the novel, both of which I found quite moving.
All of this is a long way around to offering this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carson McCullers, whom I hope has not been forgotten.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Middlemarch is a treasure house of details, but it is an indifferent whole.”
Henry James, Galaxy
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, readings/research
“Unfortunately, the author’s interest in attempting to shock his readers appears to be greater than his interest in an accurate characterization of the young men around whom this story is developed.”
American Journal of Sociology
“A case history, true for this boy Studs Lonigan, but not completely valid as the recreation of a social stratum which it also would seem to aim at being.”
New York Times Book Review
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
“A book seemingly intended to sap the foundation of that morality which it is the duty of parents and all public instructors to inculcate in the minds of young people.”
Sir John Hawkins, Life of Samuel Johnson 1787
“I scarcely know a more corrupt work.”
Samuel Johnson, quoted in Memoirs, Hannah More 1780
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
“From the first pages of this novel to the last we are conscious that the author is straining for strangeness. He will say nothing simply. His paragraphs are so long and so involved that it is hard to remember who is talking or the subject which began the paragraph… We doubt the story just as we doubt the conclusion… We do not doubt the existence of decadence, but we do doubt that it is the most important or the most interesting feature in American life, or even Mississippi life.”
Boston Evening Transcript
“The final blowup of what was once a remarkable, if minor, talent.”
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
“Despite Mr. Faulkner’s great gifts and deep sensitivity, what he is actually offering us is a flight from reality. It’s horrors and obscenities in no way contradict this, for many persons, tired of ordinary life, have been known to seek amusement courting nightmares.”
The Bookman
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
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