Status
Checked out
Genres
Publication
Penguin Books (1976), Edition: Rev Enl, Paperback, 640 pages
Description
One of the most quotable of twentieth-century authors, Dorothy Parker has attained a wide-ranging and enthusiastic following. This revised and enlarged edition, with an introduction by Brendan Gill, comprises the original 1944 Portable, as selected and arranged by Dorothy Parker herself and including all her most celebrated poems and stories, along with a selection of her later stories, play reviews, articles, book reviews from Esquire, and the complete Constant Reader, her collected New Yorker book reviews. - Back cover.
User reviews
LibraryThing member tkmarnell
Dorothy Parker is one of my short story idols. Readers who prefer action over rumination may find her stories dull and forgettable, but for the people watchers and neutral cynics, her writing is the cream of the character-driven crop. I can't read too many of them at once, however, because her
Show More
deadpan descriptions of less-than-perfect people are, while humorous, also pretty depressing. Four stars because the last half of this edition consists of outdated reviews instead of more wit-infused gold. Show Less
LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
Parker displayed a keen wit and the ability to deliver short but piercing observations on American life in the early twentieth century. Her short stories amuse and yet almost always depress as well. Her poems are bitter little pills. Her book and play reviews are not to be missed. Some of her very
Show More
best writing is in these under appreciated gems. Show Less
LibraryThing member sdr19899
Parker's works and her contributions to the American short-story genre are sinfully neglected. This book is an excellent place to remedy that oversight.
LibraryThing member Borg-mx5
How I love Parker's witty yet mournful poetry. Included here is a fine colection of her short stories as well.
LibraryThing member lamotamant
I think Parker said it best in, “There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words." I think I adore her writing so much because there's so much truth in her wit and the only calisthenics you experience while reading
Show More
her is unabated laughter. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookishbat
Once upon a time I had this idea that one should read a book from start to finish, and if one was being particularly through that included the preface and any appendix. However that technique has often left me hanging in one part of a book (really wishing that I was reading another part, farther
I've also begun reading this book more than once and ended up hopping about and only reading bits and pieces. So this time through - and I do intended to finish the whole of it this time (yes, really) - I went straight for the part I was most interested: the reviews of plays and books and other articles. I only wish there were more of these because Parker is such fun as a reviewer. More than once I've read a bit and laughed in agreement. Such as:
p. 420 "...There's only one thing I could wish about the whole play - I do wish they would do something about those Russian names. Owing to the local Russian custom of calling each person sometimes by all of his names, sometimes by only his first three or four, and sometimes by a nickname which has nothing to do with any of the other names, it is difficult for one with my congenital lowness of brow to gather exactly whom they are talking about. I do wish that as long as they are translating the thing, they would go right ahead, while they're at it, and translate Fedor Vasilyevich Protosov and Sergei Dmitrievich Abreskov and Ivan Petrovich Alexandrov into Joe and Harry and Fred."
--Vanity Fair review of Tolstoy's play Redemption, December 1918
And that nicely sums up why I could never finish The Brothers Karamazov - I made the mistake of putting it down for a day and when I tried to pick it up again I was lost and unable to figure out who was who. I probably would have had to keep a cheat sheet of names to properly keep track, and so gave up and moved on to other books.
Here's a later review, to give you another idea of why I turned to these first. Here Parker confesses to be "a confirmed user of Whodunits":
p. 568 "To me, the raveled sleeve of care is never more painlessly knitted up than in an evening alone in a chair snug yet copious, with a good light and an easily held little volume sloppily printed and bound in inexpensive paper. I do not ask much of it - which is just as well, for that is all I get. It does not matter if I guess the killer, and if I happen to discover, along around page 208, that I have read the work before, I attribute the fact not to the less than arresting powers of the author, but to my own lazy memory. I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours. In all reverence I say Heaven bless the Whodunit, the soothing balm on the wound, the cooling hand on the brow, the opiate of the people."
--Book review Of Ellery Queen: The New York Murders, from Esquire, January 1959
The Parker who writes poetry and short stories almost seems a different person. Reading too many of those pieces makes me feel somewhat depressed - or at least feeling a bit too full of the angst of love and loss, or of really horrible people who seem to pop up regularly in her short stories. I'd enjoy her writing more if I could read it all in chronological order and have the reviews and essays as relief. But I do understand the why of the ordering - the first section is how Parker herself grouped her works, and the later was added after her death.
At least if you read all her reviews last you'll be left with the more lively person who's just shared her thoughts on a play or book. That's the Parker I think I like most.
_________________________
[Here I go off on a tangent. Just noting.] When looking up the word mandragora, wikipedia helpfully pushed me over to the page on mandrake - which seems fair because it probably wasn't the demon or the band. Anyway. Under in pop culture this caught my eye:
"...Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday."
Shakespeare: Othello III.iii
Parker was wonderfully well read, so I can't think this is a coincidence. But that's just my guess, seeing that the use of mandragora probably doesn't pop up all that often. Now of course I should go reread Othello and see about the context of that quote.
Show More
in) - and if it's a book of collected stories and poems, it's not really vital that you go in order. I've also begun reading this book more than once and ended up hopping about and only reading bits and pieces. So this time through - and I do intended to finish the whole of it this time (yes, really) - I went straight for the part I was most interested: the reviews of plays and books and other articles. I only wish there were more of these because Parker is such fun as a reviewer. More than once I've read a bit and laughed in agreement. Such as:
p. 420 "...There's only one thing I could wish about the whole play - I do wish they would do something about those Russian names. Owing to the local Russian custom of calling each person sometimes by all of his names, sometimes by only his first three or four, and sometimes by a nickname which has nothing to do with any of the other names, it is difficult for one with my congenital lowness of brow to gather exactly whom they are talking about. I do wish that as long as they are translating the thing, they would go right ahead, while they're at it, and translate Fedor Vasilyevich Protosov and Sergei Dmitrievich Abreskov and Ivan Petrovich Alexandrov into Joe and Harry and Fred."
--Vanity Fair review of Tolstoy's play Redemption, December 1918
And that nicely sums up why I could never finish The Brothers Karamazov - I made the mistake of putting it down for a day and when I tried to pick it up again I was lost and unable to figure out who was who. I probably would have had to keep a cheat sheet of names to properly keep track, and so gave up and moved on to other books.
Here's a later review, to give you another idea of why I turned to these first. Here Parker confesses to be "a confirmed user of Whodunits":
p. 568 "To me, the raveled sleeve of care is never more painlessly knitted up than in an evening alone in a chair snug yet copious, with a good light and an easily held little volume sloppily printed and bound in inexpensive paper. I do not ask much of it - which is just as well, for that is all I get. It does not matter if I guess the killer, and if I happen to discover, along around page 208, that I have read the work before, I attribute the fact not to the less than arresting powers of the author, but to my own lazy memory. I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours. In all reverence I say Heaven bless the Whodunit, the soothing balm on the wound, the cooling hand on the brow, the opiate of the people."
--Book review Of Ellery Queen: The New York Murders, from Esquire, January 1959
The Parker who writes poetry and short stories almost seems a different person. Reading too many of those pieces makes me feel somewhat depressed - or at least feeling a bit too full of the angst of love and loss, or of really horrible people who seem to pop up regularly in her short stories. I'd enjoy her writing more if I could read it all in chronological order and have the reviews and essays as relief. But I do understand the why of the ordering - the first section is how Parker herself grouped her works, and the later was added after her death.
At least if you read all her reviews last you'll be left with the more lively person who's just shared her thoughts on a play or book. That's the Parker I think I like most.
_________________________
[Here I go off on a tangent. Just noting.] When looking up the word mandragora, wikipedia helpfully pushed me over to the page on mandrake - which seems fair because it probably wasn't the demon or the band. Anyway. Under in pop culture this caught my eye:
"...Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday."
Shakespeare: Othello III.iii
Parker was wonderfully well read, so I can't think this is a coincidence. But that's just my guess, seeing that the use of mandragora probably doesn't pop up all that often. Now of course I should go reread Othello and see about the context of that quote.
Show Less
LibraryThing member vdt_melbourne
Short stories which I don’t align with. Well written
LibraryThing member ivanfranko
The short stories still exhibit the writing talent of Ms. Parker, ninety years or so on. The dialogue is true to my memory of how contrived a lot of the chit-chat from my parents' days was; she writes so that inflections of speech, and therefore subtle meanings, are recorded faithfully. I loved her
Disappointment in love is a common theme. Ms Parker writes from her own experiences at how heart-braking it is.
There is an introduction to this collection written by Brendan Gill. It is worth reading for an overall evaluation of her work.
The copious number of poems, I have not dwelt on, but the final section is a selection of her reviews of books and theatre. These are often sparkling efforts, full of humour and outrage at the good or the bad.
Show More
savage wit and her sharp awareness of bad form when someone commits a social crime. Disappointment in love is a common theme. Ms Parker writes from her own experiences at how heart-braking it is.
There is an introduction to this collection written by Brendan Gill. It is worth reading for an overall evaluation of her work.
The copious number of poems, I have not dwelt on, but the final section is a selection of her reviews of books and theatre. These are often sparkling efforts, full of humour and outrage at the good or the bad.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1973
Physical description
640 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0140150749 / 9780140150742