Dorothy Parker (The Constant Reader)

Cafe Society
1

Dorothy Parker, famed reviewer for the New Yorker magazine (1927-1933) under the pseudonym “The Constant Reader”, is often quoted as having stated in one review that “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.”

For quite some time now, I have been trying to find an authoritative answer regarding the specific book to which she was referring. The targets of many of her other often-quoted barbs are fairly well documented. This particular comment, however, seems to have become detached from the identity of its intended victim.

2

Sorry I can’t help you, but hopefully someone will be able to - great quote from Dame Parker…one of my faves.

3

I could go home tonight and leaf page-by-page through my Portable Dorothy Parker. You wanna make it worth my while?

[It might have been something by Dreiser—she hated Dreiser]

4

The classic Dreiser review was for Dawn: "[Hundreds of] pages for a book called Dawn; God help us all if he ever decides to write a book called “June 21st.”

And of course for Winnie the Pooh: “Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”

Now I’m curious; I may have to check my own portable Parker tonight.

5

Grrr. Now I’m annoyed. I’ve flicked through my Dorothy Parker collection and can I find it anywhere? Of course not.

I did, however, find another favourite of mine . .

*His publishers say of Mr George Reith, the author of ‘The Art of Successful Bidding’ that he, “by virtue of his new position as Chairman of the Card Committee of the Kinckerbocker Whist Club, is now the highest authority in the auction bridge world.” So you see, there is something wrong. Obviously the publishers have never met a certain gentleman who shall be nameless - being already possessed of all the other characteristics of one born out of wedlock - who was my bridge partner last Saturday night. *

Just about the most subtle way of being rude about someone that I have ever read.

6

One of my favorites, about a debutante ball (and from memory, so there might be some slight paraphrasing in the set-up):

If all these pretty young things were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

–Cliffy

7

“If all those sweet young things present were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

Speaking about a Yale prom, according to my sources.

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Well, at least I got the payoff right. :wink:

–Cliffy

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Well, he said to himself, this should be an easy one. Just flip through my copy of Constant Reader (Viking, 1970) and find the review. There are only a few novel reviews and some of them are positive. Easy.

Nothing in the novel reviews. He checked again. Still nothing. Maybe the quote is misworded and “book” rather than “novel” is at issue. He flipped through the entire volume. Still nothing.

Hmm. The jacket copy says that only “Thirty-one, in part or in full, of the forty-six Constant Reader pieces are gathered here…” It could be in one of those omitted.

Maybe the Internet had a clue. Dozens of Google hits later, he found that the entire world likes to quote this slam, but only a tiny few give Constant Reader as a source, and only a few more attribute it to “a book review.” Most just quote it.

Fine, he said. You have a humor collection that spans eight full bookcases. Time to delve into the archives. Out came the Dorothy Parker biographies, the tributes to the Algonquin wits, the histories of The New Yorker. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Past secondary sources into the tertiary ones. Studies of the 1920s. Famous women comedians. Humorous quote collections. More nothing. (Although, he noted, older books tend not to include this quote at all. Hmm, again.)

Finally, gibbering under an enormous pile of books, he came to a realization:

The quote could come from a “Constant Reader” column that was not collected into the book. Very possible. The quote could have been said in conversation and just attributed to her column. Very possible. The quote is a good line and has been (perhaps recently) attributed to Parker because it sounds like one of hers. Very possible.

And slowly he sank into catatonia, waiting for Eve, the only other Doper who might possibly have greater resources to glean from, wondering, wondering, wondering…

10

Is she the one who made the famous “Marie of Roumania” quote?

I don’t know much about Parker, but Marie of Roumania is one of my all time favorite royals. She kicked serious arse.

11

That was indeed Dorothy Parker. I’m quoting from memory, but I think the whole thing goes:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
a medley of extemporanea;
and love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I am Marie of Roumania.

My soon-to-be-GF inscribed that on the valentine she gave me, when I was 19. I think I had some smartass Groucho line on the one I gave her. (Surprised, huh?) Hi, Meliss, wherever you are! :slight_smile:

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Exapno, would you be so kind as to give me your home address, a list of dates and times when no one will be there, and the code to your burglar alarm? It’s for, um, some research I’m doing.

–Cliffy

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Oh, son. It’s not those piffling eight bookcases. It’s those eighteen others they share the room with.

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When I was in grad school for library science, I researched this for a humanities reference course - we’d get these “treasure hunt” questions and in the course of trying to find the answer, learned much more about the various reference sources.

My answer to this question ended up being two pages of description of all the things I did to find the source of the quote and what book it was referring too. Basically, I too came up short. Every book that includes the quote attributes it to either “a book review” or “constant reader” (as exapno mapcase already said about the Constant Reader book) without being more specific about which column, or which book. I remember that I got really stubborn about this - damnit I WAS going to find the answer. I finally spent about 4 hours in the University library one day going through the old microfilm copies of the New Yorker. I read almost every single Constant Reader column except for a few where the microfilm was missing. Since the books that were collections of the column weren’t complete and since some of the columns in those collections were edited or abridged, I thought looking at the originals would be the key. But I still couldn’t find it. So, as Exapno Mapcase also says, perhaps it was in one of the few columns I couldn’t find - I don’t know.

Anyway, if anyone is really interested in going further with this (Eve?), I’d be happy to pull the thing out of my attic and list the sources I checked. I think I have all the book titles I checked, reference sources, Web searches (no google then), and perhaps even the years of actual microfilm I looked at. At least that way someone else trying to find the answer won’t have to re-invent the wheel…
Cricket

15

I begin to smell the faint, distant odor of an apocryphal story.

I’m a Parker fan, myself. I’ve seen this quote attributed to her, but no trace of the source material.

Methinks I smell a rodent.

16

Interesting question. Dottie has been my heroine since I did a year long research project on her many moons ago. I’ve read all the biographies published, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what book she was referring to. Odd. So off I go into cyberspace. I DID come up with a good lead, according to The Columbia World of Quotations the quote isn’t attributed to Constant Reader, but to an anthology called * The Algonquin Wits*, written by one Robert Drennan in 1968. I can’t find any portion of the book online. According to Borders.com, my local store has the book in stock. So off an ill little Swiddles goes to get ginger ale and a cite.

But Borders.com lies. They do NOT have the book in stock. Maybe if being sick gets too tedious, I’ll trot on down to the university library tomorrow.

17

Don’t waste your time.

Drennen’s book merely says “Book Review.”

I believe I have all the books on the Algonquin Round Table (more than Amazon lists, at any rate) and I flipped through them all with no luck. Maybe the quote can be found at some place in the books that isn’t covered by a Dorothy Parker reference in the index but I’m doubtful.

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[hijack] Now that we have such a focused group here, I need to know:

Does anyone remember a thread mentioning that some of the papers of memeber of the Group are to be released or opened up(as in an archive) in the near future? I can’t remember where I heard/read this.

[end hijack]

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Swiddles -

As Exapno Mapcase already pointed out, you’ve run straight into the crux of the problem. There are many books out there that attribute that quote, but they all attribute it to either “constant reader” “book review” or “book X”. Then, when you track down book X, it merely restates “book review” or “constant reader”. Every Algonquin book quotes every other one so it’s a constant circle!

Cricket

20

. . . Even if you could find an attribution, the ghosts of Messrs. Benchley and Woollcott would rise up, howling “I said it first!”