Tag Archives: literary oddities

Rotten Reviews: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

“’…The holy bearded veck all nagoy hanging on a cross’ is an example of the author’s language and questionable taste…. The author seems content to use a serious social challenge for frivolous purposes, but himself to stay neutral.”

 Times (London)

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun on Taxation

“Any reasonable system of taxation should be based on the slogan of ‘Soak the rich.’”

Heywood Broun

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

A Rotten Reviews Omnibus: William S. Burroughs

The Ticket That Exploded

“The works of William Burroughs…have been taken seriously, even solemnly, by some literary types, including Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer. Actually, Burroughs’s work adds up to the world’s pluperfect put-on.

Time

Naked Lunch

“…the merest trash, not worth a second look.”

New Republic

Nova Express

“…The book is unnecessary,”

Granville Hicks, The New Republic 

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

Kingsley Amis on Reasons to Write

“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”

Kingsley Amis

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

The Algonquin Wits: Robert E. Sherwood on Presidential Elections and Succession

“Discussing modern presidential history, Sherwood once stated: ‘All Coolidge had to do in 1924 was to keep his mean trap shut, to be elected. All Harding had to do in 1920 was repeat ‘avoid foreign entanglements.’ All Hoover had to in 1928 was to endorse Coolidge. All Roosevelt had to do in 1932 was to point to Hoover.’”

Robert E. Sherwood

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

42—Life, The Universe, and Everything

“In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the computer Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to work out the Answer to the Ultimate Questions of Life, the Universe and Everything is ‘42’—even if in the process the question had been forgotten. It is an answer that must disconcert Japanese readers, for 42 in Japan is like 49 in Chinese: when pronounced ‘four’ and ‘two,’ it sounds horribly similar to ‘unto death.’”

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.

Benjamin Stolberg on Experts

“An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy.”

Benjamin Stolberg

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Alben W. Barkley on “Bureaucrat” as an Epithet

“A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.”

Alben W. Barkley

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Rotten Rejections: Madame Bovary

“You have buried your novel underneath a heap of details which are well done but utterly superfluous….”

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Dictator

“Dictator, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.