“…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
“Of his earlier poems, many are very licentious; the later are chiefly devout. Few are good for much.”
Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe 1837
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 humor, literary oddities, poetry
“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
“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
“A hoary-headed and toothless baboon.”
Thomas Carlyle, Collected Works 1871
“Belongs to a class of gentlemen with whom we have no patience whatever–the mystics for mysticism’s sake. The best answer to his twaddle is cui bono?–a very little Latin phrase very generally mistranslated and misunderstood–cui bono? to whom is it a benefit. If not to Mr. Emerson generally, then surely to no man.
Edgar Allan Poe, in a chapter of autobiography 1842
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 literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“A cliche anthologist…and maker of ragamuffin manikins.”
Aristophanes, The Thesmophoriazausae 411 B.C.
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 drama/theater, literary oddities
“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
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