Tag Archives: literary oddities

The Algonquin Wits: Peggy Wood to Aleck Woollcott

Peggy Wood, actress and Round Table frequenter, joined the group one day when [Alexander] Woollcott was discussion the feasibility of reviving Macbeth as a Broadway play. Acknowledging the arrival of Miss Wood, Aleck said, ‘We’re discussing the cast. I don’t think you’d make a very good Lady Macbeth, do you Peggy?’

‘No, Aleck,’ she answered. ‘But you would.’”

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

Rotten Reviews: The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Conner

“As a specialist in Southern horror stories, Miss O’Conner’s attitude has been wry, her preferences perverse, her audience special.”

Kirkus Reviews

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

The Algonquin Wits: Beatrice Kaufman Answers Literary Questions

“George Oppenheimer, while an editor at Viking Press, was once assigned to collect material for a question-book called Ask Me Another. As a promotional gimmick the editors were advised to first test the questions on various celebrities. Covering the ‘famous authors’ section, Oppenheimer asked Beatrice Kaufman: ‘Who wrote The Virginian?’

Owen Wister,’ Beatrice answered.

Oppenheimer’s next question read: ‘Who wrote The Virginians?’

Reacting against the gimmicky pattern of the questions, Beatrice answered, ‘Owens Wisters.’”

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

Rotten Reviews: Wise Blood by Flannery O’Conner

“A gloomy tale. The author tries to lighten it with humor, but unfortunately her idea of humor is almost exclusively variations on the pratfall…Neither satire not humor is achieved.”

Saturday Review of Literature

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

The Algonquin Wits: Tallulah Bankhead Reviews a Film

“After sitting through the preview of a strikingly bad movie made by an independent producer, Tallulah observed, ‘What I don’t see is what that producer has got to be independent about.'”

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

Rotten Reviews: McTeague by Frank Norris

“…grossness for the sake of grossness…the world will not be proud of it in that distant tomorrow which irrevocably sets the true value on books of today.”

The Literary World

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

Rotten Reviews: The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter

“What all this means only Mr. Pinter knows, for as his characters speak in non-sequiturs, half-gibberish and lunatic ravings, they are unable to explain their actions, thoughts, of feelings. If the author can forget Beckett, Ionesco, and Simpson he may do much better next time.”

Manchester Guardian 1958

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

Samuel Johnson on a Visit to the Library

“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.”

Samuel Johnson

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

Rotten Reviews: Common Sense by Thomas Paine

“Shallow, violent, and scurrilous.”

William Edward Hartpole Lecky, A History of England in the 18th Century 1882

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

The Devil’s Dictionary: Cartesian

“Cartesian, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum Cogito ergo sum—whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum—’I think that I think, therefore I think that I am’; as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”

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