Tag Archives: literary oddities

The Algonquin Wits: Harold Ross on Coherence

Posted on September 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Ross once stated emphatically to Robert Benchley: ‘Don’t think I’m not incoherent.'”

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

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Rotten Reviews: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Posted on September 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The book is long, drawn out, full of repetitions, and marred throughout by its obscenity and irreligion.”

Catholic World

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

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Rotten Reviews: James Joyce

Posted on September 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

[This review refers to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.]

“…as a treatment of Irish politics, society or religion, it is negligible.”

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

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Conservative

Posted on September 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.” 

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

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The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman on Raymond Massey’s Method Acting

Posted on September 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“‘Massey won’t be satisfied until he’s assassinated.’ Kaufman remarked about actor Raymond Massey’s heralded performance in Abe Lincoln in Illinois.”

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

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Opiate

Posted on September 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads to the jail yard.”

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

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Monty Python on the Roman Empire

Posted on August 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

“[Reg, played by John Cleese, speaking:] All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Life of Brian (motion picture) (1979)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Book of Answers: Robinson Crusoe

Posted on August 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Was there a real Robinson Crusoe? Daniel Defoe based The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719-20) on the real-life story of Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), a Scottish sailor who survived for more than four years on the desert island of Juan Fernandez off the Chilean coast. He became a celebrity after his rescue and homecoming in 1709.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Rotten Reviews: Thomas Mann and Buddenbrooks

Posted on August 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

[It’s worth mentioning here, I think, that Thomas Mann was the Nobel Laureate in Literature for 1929. These Rotten Reviews refer, as above, to Buddenbrooks, published in 1901]

“Very few Americans will take the trouble to read this book ot the end. It contains no climaxes, no vivid surprise…. Interesting as the story may be it is too loosely constructed, and for many readers that will prove a barrier.”

Boston Evening Transcript, 1921

“Nothing but two thick tomes in which the author describes the worthless story of worthless people in worthless chatter.”

Edward Engel, in The Art of Folly 1961

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

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The 11th Hour

Posted on August 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Significant 11s punctuate modern history. The First World War, after consuming some twenty million lives, ended with an armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Eleven is also strongly associated with American and rocket power, for it was Apollo 11 from which Neil Armstrong made the first landing on the moon, The attack on the World Trade Centre was made by American Airlines flight 11, on 11 September 2001, an event now chronicled throughout the world as 9/11. Eleven also has strong numerological connotations as the union of 5 and 6 in the works of Pythagoras and his many followers.”

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.

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