In this earlier thread, Dopers attempted to uncover the identity of the book which was the subject of Dorothy Parker’s famous review, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
According to “Mark My Words” by Nigel Rees (1997), the book was Claudia Particella, L’Amante del Cardinale: Grande Romanzo dei Tempi del Cardinal Emanuel Madruzzo, by Benito Mussolini, which was published in the US as The Cardinal’s Mistress. The quote does not appear in the original very negative review (dated Sptember 15, 1928). Rees’s source on the novel’s identity is Scorn by Matthew Parris (1994). He sources the quote itself in Wit’s End by R. E. Drennan, who (could be) the same Robert Drennan who compiled The Columbia World of Quotations referenced in the other thread.
If this answer to the question can be verified, I would not hesitate to nominate this as The Greatest Trivia Question in the History of the World.
Cheers, y’all.
-Myron
PS. Mark My Words had been earlier published as Cassell Companion to Quotations.
I have a copy of the review in my greasy little hands. The quote is not in there.
To re-iterate Eve; how does Drennan place it there.
And if it isn’t there, then the problem has not been solved.
If we’re going to revive this, could we try not to add more misinformation to the heaping pile?
Wit’s End is a book by James R. Gaines, not by Drennan. I’ve gone through every reference to Parker in the index and none of them mention the quote. In fact, her column is passed off in a side remark in one sentence.
The book by Robert E. Drennan is The Algonquin Wits, which, as I said in the other thread, gives no attribution for the quote.
And the review of The Cardinal’s Mistress in the book Constant Reader does not have the quote in it. So if it’s not in the original review and not in the reprinted review, then it’s probably not from that review.
As for Matthew Parris, his book was orignally Scorn with Added Vitriol, later expanded and revised into Scorn With Extra Bile. It appears to be your standard collection of insult quotes, but I don’t have a copy of it to check. Still, if he sources Drennan then he’s just like all the others who cite the citers.
Now this, my friends, is why I love the 'Dope. We may not have an answer yet, but the (virtual) conversation is fact-based, wonderfully trivial, and passionate.
If I may channel the voice of Mrs. Parker, allow me to say that this is the darkest day that has yet dawned over the bloody and bowed head of your girl-friend. Once I made note of the Original Post, submitted by the enigmatically named The Man Who, I felt it would be only a matter of minutes before I unearthed the source of the bon mot in question.
Alas, after devoting most of the afternoon to the task of re-reading every review in The Portable Dorothy Parker, I am no more enlightened than I was at breakfast. I must say that employing lousy books as weapons was one Mrs. Parker’s favorite suggestions.
I give you, for your birthday, her description of The Autobiography of Margot Asquith: “four volumes, neatly boxed, suitable for throwing purposes.”
EC, Now you know how I felt when the original thread appeared.
But while you certainly had a delightful afternoon of reading, you also certainly had a futile one. All that The Portable Dorothy Parker, revised editions of 1973 and later, does is reprint the entirety of the 1970 edition of Constant Reader, which we’ve already established does not contain the quote. (True, it does contain a few of her later Esquire reviews, but these are almost all major books and who believes that the quote would be from as late as that period of her life anyway?)
If the quote is available, it’s extremely doubtful that it’s in any of her books because then it would be found in an afternoon.
Nice to see another Dorothy Parker fan, of course.
Why, thanks everso, Exapno. I agree with every point you made. At this moment, I at last feel truly welcome to the SDMB ('tho Eve has been friendly as well).
How I came to know about Dorothy Parker:
In the summer of 1968, my mother read “The Waltz” to me from her copy of the original 1944 ed. of thePortable. I was 7 years old. (I could have read it myself, but Mom enjoys and is very good at reading aloud.) I laughed so hard I was in physical pain. I went on to read all the other stories in the book that summer, and since then, Dottie’s been my girl.
Oh, and today’s wasn’t a wasted afternoon! Many of my favorite things are in a storage unit across town, (long story), and I rarely get to go visit them. Today I brought out the Portable DP and maybe 2 dozen other books I had been lonesome for.
We are going to get to the bottom of this mystery, dammit!
I submitted this to Snopes back when the original thread appeared, they’ve not responded. Jerks.
I don’t remember, but did anyone try contacting the New Yorker directly? Perhaps they have greater insight.
I seemed to recall that Parker was blacklisted after being called infront of HUAC, and couldn’t get a job screenwriting. It was at this time that she started reviewing for Esquire, though it was very intermittenly. (Her husband, Alan Campbell, reportedly had to beg her to do her reviews.) Between 1957 and 1964, she wrote for Esquire. She also had a gig at Life, but I think those were more narrative pieces than reviews. (I seem to recall that “Men I’m Not Married To” was originally printed in Life. I could be wrong on that, though.)
Since the New Yorker/Constant Reader pieces were collected, and it’s obvious the line isn’t in there, it’s my guess that if it is legit at all, it’s from the Esquire reviews. It makes sense, those were written when she really didn’t give a flying fornification if she got her review in on time, and wasn’t really paying attention to the quality of them. So the quality of them would be more uneven and less likely to be reprinted as a whole. Ergo: she might have had one great line in a few years worth of crappy reviews. The question is: does the volume of reviews that you all are referring to include the later Esquire reviews? They began to get REALLY sportatic around 1962, I think. I’ll fire off an email to the Esquire PR people and see if anyone there has any ideas.
I am SO DAMN IMPRESSED with the knowledge you people have on the subject of Dorothy Parker—so much you’d think we’d have the answer by now! Please don’t anyone take this wrong—I don’t mean it to sound arrogant—but I consider myself very knowledgeable about Dorothy Parker, and that is why I am so impressed with what I’ve read here.
Do any Dopers out there WORK for the New Yorker? How about spending a lunch hour rummaging feverishly through the files?
Can we track down Dick Cavett? I bet he might know.
I live down the street from a couple of regular writers for the New Yorker and can ask them what they would recommend in terms of researching the answer through the magazine. But, as you might expect, they tend to be a bit…oh, standoffish? - when it comes to discussing their work, so I may not get anywhere…
I may add here that The Portable Dorothy Parker does not contain the entirety of her book and play reviews. Back when the NYPL had old bound Vanity Fairs on their shelves for the browsing, I photocopied a number of her reviews that have never been reprinted elsewhere. Hilarious, of course—but the quote in question does not pop up.
And not only that, but the Publisher’s Note to Constant Reader says that “Of the forty-six Constant Reader pieces that appeared, thirty-one have been reprinted here in whole or in part.” A real search would require going to the library and checking every one of these originals in addition to anything Parker wrote for other publications.
But I’m beginning to think that it would be futile. My guess is that the quote is one of the many that the Algonquin crowd concocted for the purpose of getting their names into one of the newspaper columns their friends and colleagues wrote for the million daily papers. Or that a friendly press agent inserted in her name. Just as the “Let me slip out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini” line is now suspected to be a press agent’s invention attributed to Robert Benchley.
Another possibility is Bennett Cerf. He edited a long series of joke collections, in which he arbitrarily inserted the names of current celebrities into the jokes as something that happened to them or that they said or overheard. Names sell books and these were wildly popular in their day.
Unless it’s found in a magazine piece, I’m not sure how we’d ever prove today it was actually by Parker. Though she’ll always get the credit.
I too am impressed by the number of Parker fans here. Who’ed a thunk it.
I think Mapcase may be correct; this one was made up and passed along by Cerf, Benchly, et al.
Bumping this because I have a candidate: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison.
“Oh bugger oh merde knickers the Sex God just walked past knickers my parents are hopeless knickers my life is ruined knickers I treat my friends like crap knickers I want to be a slut knickers nobody understands me knickers knickers knickers knickers knickers knickers knickers.”
I’m reading it for research purposes only. I’m writing a novel aimed at teenagers, and Mr. Rilch suggested that I check out something currently popular with teens, so that I have an idea what sells. This book and its sequels are huge sellers, and have scads of 5-star reviews on Amazon, so I got a copy from the library. I figured I could read it in a day or so. It does read really fast, but if it wasn’t a library copy, I would have thrown it by now.
I mentioned in another thread that when I was working at Waldenbooks, a mom came up to me holding a hardback copy gingerly with the tips of her fingers, aghast that it had been in the children’s section “where kids could see it!”.
I said nothing to her, but I had glanced at it a time or two when I was on break, and thought it was merely a junior-grade Bridget Jones, and this woman might not have reacted as she had if she’d known that “snogging” meant “kissing”, instead of something more advanced. Now I’m on the fourth segment, and I still don’t think it’s dirty, but it’s even more bloody annoying than BJD was! If this is what sells to teenagers nowadays, I weep for them.
I mean, I know teenagers are self-centered, appearance-conscious, and hormonally driven, but this is just over the top. I’d like to push this little brat’s head into a sink full of cold water and keep it there until the bubbles stop. And Ms. Rennison: I get it. Underwear is funny (or at least you think it is) but if all you have is one gag, it’s not strengthened by using it on every page.
I tried to answer this question years ago as an assignment for my Humanities Reference class at library school. I came to the same conclusion as Exapno Mapcase and spent a few hours in the microfiche room trying to read every back issue of the New Yorker to find the other 15 reviews - but I wasn’t successful. I don’t remember exactly (I’d have to pull the assignment out of the attic) but I think I saw most but not quite all of the reviews, so I wasn’t able to put that part of the question to rest. It’s possible it was in one of those few reviews I didn’t see. However, I think Exapno Mapcase is probably right about the “true” source of the quote.
