Tag Archives: literary oddities

Rotten Reviews: (Edward) Abbey’s Road

Posted on December 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

“If you want to read 200 pages of Edward Abbey’s self-flattery buy this…smug, graceless book.”

The New Republic

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged

The Algonquin Wits: Franklin Pierce Adams on Dissembling

Posted on December 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

“’Big wars, says the Herald Tribune, in our nomination for the year’s Half-Truth Prize, ‘are very costly to the losers.’”

Franklin Pierce Adams

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

John Kenneth Galbraith on Politics

Posted on December 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Posted on December 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A film (1963) based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George about the threat of global nuclear destruction. The film was directed by Stanley Kubrick and starred Peter Sellers in three roles, including that of Dr. Strangelove himself (a crippled ex-Nazi scientist) and that of the US president who finds himself helpless to stop events spiralling out of control.

‘Gentleman, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!’

Such was the success of the film that in subsequent years any hawkish Cold War warrior was liable to be labelled as a ‘Dr. Strangelove.'”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , ,

Rotten Reviews: The Plumed Serpent by D.H. Lawrence

Posted on December 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“…if this writing up of a new faith is intended for a message, then it is only a paltry one, with its feathers, its bowls of human blood and its rhetoric.”

The Spectator

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

The Devil’s Dictionary: Abuse

Posted on December 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Abuse, n. [1.] The goal of debate. Abuse of power is the exercise of authority in a manner unpleasant to ourselves. [2.] Unanswerable wit.” 

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Rotten Rejections: The Silence of History by James T. Farrell

Posted on November 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

[The manuscript dismissed below is The Silence of History by James T. Farrell]

“Although these manuscripts are physically a mess, they are also lousy.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged

The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun on Open-Mindedness

Posted on November 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

[Said of one fence-straddling radio commentator]

“His mind is so open that the wind whistles through it.”

Heywood Broun

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Rotten Reviews: Sinclair Lewis and Main Street

Posted on November 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“It is full of fact colored by rather laborious and over clever satire. But it has no sustained action, whether as realism or as satire. It is a bulky collection of scenes, types, caricatures, humorous episodes, and facetious turns of phrase; a mine of comedy from which the ore has not been lifted.”

The Weekly Review

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Rotten Rejections: Isabel of Bavaria

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

[The squib refers to the novel by Alexandre Dumas.]

“Stick to drama, my dear fellow. You know you are a dramatic through and through.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged ,