famous writers who criticize other famous writers: C/D?

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i say CLASSIC! i can't get enough of this stuff. that truman capote book of interviews where he just rips into one peer after another is pretty much the funniest book ever (if anyone owns this book please post some quotes!), and nabokov was notoriously full of contempt for the likes of dostoevsky ("his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment"), cervantes, thomas mann ("asinine"), pasternak ("melodramatic and vilely written"), faulkner, "that awful monsieur camus," "finnegans wake" ("i detest all novels written in dialect"), etc etc. (and when asked to name a writer he admired he said john updike!! jesus!)

gore vidal had a really great remark about herman melville along the lines of "who's he think he is, trying to rewrite king lear? he should've stuck to doing his little adventure stories in the south seas."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:13 (twenty years ago)

herman melville >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> gore vidal

Virginia Woolf hated on Joyce bigtime, to her discredit.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:19 (twenty years ago)

here's a quote i found

Virginia Woolf, on 'Ulysses'
'underbred, the effort of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples'

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:39 (twenty years ago)

Kwaw Li Ya

― Caalzac, Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:42 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah, vidal will never write anything half as good as one paragraph of "bartleby." but it's still a funny remark.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:43 (twenty years ago)

here's a quote i found
Virginia Woolf, on 'Ulysses'
'underbred, the effort of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples'

Holy shit!

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Thursday, 30 March 2006 06:43 (twenty years ago)

Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met - William Faulkner

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 30 March 2006 06:51 (twenty years ago)

just finished the last bit of A Moveable Feast where Hem talks about his time with Fitzgerald, can't help but think some of it's skewed.

― Mattattack (matt attack), Thursday, 30 March 2006 08:22 (twenty years ago)

I read a Michel Houellebecq essay where he talks about 20th century literature being almost all garbage except for science-fiction. Then he discusses the merits of H.P. Lovecraft and Bret Easton Ellis.

great thread btw

― yeah!, Thursday, 30 March 2006 08:50 (twenty years ago)

edmund wilson said fitzgerald reminded him of a stupid old woman who owned an unbelievably gorgeous jewel or something but had no clue what it was worth or what to do with it.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 30 March 2006 08:51 (twenty years ago)

haha i remember reading that the only modern writers jg ballard admires are william burroughs and...isaac asimov!!!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 30 March 2006 08:52 (twenty years ago)

This is one of my favourite bits of the Guardian every Saturday, when they have that little quote of one historical writer usually being rather snide (it's better that way) about another.

― Wild Woman With Steak Knives (kate), Thursday, 30 March 2006 09:04 (twenty years ago)

"Oh no, not another fucking elf!"

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 30 March 2006 09:04 (twenty years ago)

Theres's a whole book of 'em here...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031227209X/103-8122093-0589422?n=283155
Looks amazingly wide-ranging...

― Ned T.RIfle II (Ned T.Rifle II), Thursday, 30 March 2006 09:12 (twenty years ago)

Fowles vs Barthes

― Ben Dot (1977), Thursday, 30 March 2006 11:30 (twenty years ago)

Classic when the superior writer lays down the smack. Painfully funny when the lesser talent tries to get all controversial.

Woolf also said something about Joyce being the kind of bloke who "wouldn't know what fork to use".

Nabokov's regard for Updike seems reasonable to me. He's one of the few writers who gets near Nabokov's stylistic skillz. He was wrong about Finnegans Wake tho but.

― Robocock (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 March 2006 11:38 (twenty years ago)

see the classic Normski Mailer essay where he evaluates "the talent in the room." maybe it's in

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, 30 March 2006 12:10 (twenty years ago)

...Advertisements for Myself ?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, 30 March 2006 12:11 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov's regard for Updike seems reasonable to me. He's one of the few writers who gets near Nabokov's stylistic skillz

Maybe that's why I hate both of them. Wyndham Lewis was apt to be, errrrrrrrrr, critical of his fellow writers.

― Dadaismus Is A Very Magic Fellow (Dada), Thursday, 30 March 2006 12:13 (twenty years ago)

jeez famous writers, have we all learned nothing from eminem and benzino?

― haitch (haitch), Thursday, 30 March 2006 12:26 (twenty years ago)

Dada: You Hate Writing.

― Robocock (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 March 2006 12:58 (twenty years ago)

"you've already had portnoys complaint, why do you want portnoy?"

― +++, Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:06 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov also criticized what he called:"Tolstoyevski" - meaning the realistic, classic russian litreture,as being to stiff

― come on dead, Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:08 (twenty years ago)

My favorite Vidal put-down: Reagan studying Reader's Digest "like Jefferson poured over Montesquieu."

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:33 (twenty years ago)

Oh, and Nabokov owns this thread.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:34 (twenty years ago)

Capote also famously said of Kerouac, "It's not writing, it's typing."

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Gealousy between writers is very common, and those are the resulrs, but some say it creats better books..

― come on dead, Thursday, 30 March 2006 13:41 (twenty years ago)

George Bernard Shaw on Shakespeare: ...there is no eminent writer whom I despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. The intensity of my impatience with him occasionally reaches such a pitch that it would positively be a relief to me to
dig him up and throw stones at him...

― elmo, holy helper (allocryptic), Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:06 (twenty years ago)

totally totally classic.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:08 (twenty years ago)

I found interesting the wolfe defending detailed realism in fiction vs updike etc

What do y'all think , is fiction grounded in factual minutiaes better equipped to pass the "test of time"?

Another variation of his point that I found interesting, the "reality surpasses fiction" one, where I heard him mention the case of paris hilton as proof. A heiress losing her porn tape and ending up making money with it being something that would seem unbeliveable in fiction, it defies reasonable imagination, that could only come up with some ransom scenario or whatever.

― rory@, Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:09 (twenty years ago)

especially when they're so poignant, like 'underbred, the effort of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples'

or fitzgeraldn as an old woman (or henry james!). haha

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:09 (twenty years ago)

mark twain on somebody: "His work is both original and good. However, the parts that are original aren't good and the parts that are good aren't original." or something like that.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:15 (twenty years ago)

the neil pollack parody of the mailer essay is hilarious.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 30 March 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

Dada: You Hate Writing.

No, I hate John Updike, there's a difference

― Dadaismus Is A Very Magic Fellow (Dada), Thursday, 30 March 2006 15:44 (twenty years ago)

huk thats samuel johnson not twain

― +++, Thursday, 30 March 2006 15:46 (twenty years ago)

what's the diff?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 30 March 2006 15:50 (twenty years ago)

(i know the diff - i just get their epithets confused b/c I have this book of lit. insults where they both loom large)
Real Twain: "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 30 March 2006 15:51 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov also criticized what he called:"Tolstoyevski" - meaning the realistic, classic russian litreture,as being to stiff

-- come on dead (...), March 30th, 2006.

Do you have attribution on that one? Nabokov supposedly loved Tolstoy and hated Dostoyevsky, so I doubt he'd have lumped the two together.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 31 March 2006 00:42 (twenty years ago)

Dostoyevsky>Nabokov

I mean, still a great writer, but what a contemptuous little prig.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 31 March 2006 00:46 (twenty years ago)

"Do you have attribution on that one? Nabokov supposedly loved Tolstoy and hated Dostoyevsky, so I doubt he'd have lumped the two together. "

it's not in google, though i clearly remember reading an essay about Nabokov by a lirterure professor, who said that Nabokov invented "Tolstoyevsky" (also "Comonazi's", for certain political movements) while he was teaching russian litreture in american college,trying to put both writers in the same basket, as the best examples of stiff realistic russian writers.
it does make sense, if you consider the fact that Nabokov admired surrealistic writers like Gogol, and was an impersionist himself.quite ethe opposite of classic writers.

― come on dead, Friday, 31 March 2006 01:01 (twenty years ago)

Philip Pullman referred to C.S. Lewis's Narnia books as "one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read".

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Friday, 31 March 2006 03:01 (twenty years ago)

Lem's notorious contempt for all sci-fi except PKD and a handfull of others.
(Which is how I discovered PKD.)

― shieldforyoureyes, Friday, 31 March 2006 05:59 (twenty years ago)

From the Literary Feuds book on amazon mentioned upthread "Mark Twain vs Bret Harte" - possibly at an early WrestleMania? I

― tenbuck, Friday, 31 March 2006 15:10 (twenty years ago)

Louisa May Alcott vs Fabulous Moolah!

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 31 March 2006 15:13 (twenty years ago)

i clearly remember reading an essay about Nabokov by a lirterure professor, who said that Nabokov invented "Tolstoyevsky" (also "Comonazi's", for certain political movements) while he was teaching russian litreture in american college,trying to put both writers in the same basket, as the best examples of stiff realistic russian writers.
it does make sense, if you consider the fact that Nabokov admired surrealistic writers like Gogol, and was an impersionist himself.quite ethe opposite of classic writers.

-- come on dead (...), March 30th, 2006.

(from Wikipedia entry on Anna Karenina)

Although most Russian critics panned the novel upon its first publication as a "trifling romance of high life", Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art". His opinion is seconded by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style"

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:00 (twenty years ago)

I like when the Brits get into it. Moorcock vs. Martin Amis is really funny (actually Moorcock vs. anyone is usually pretty funny. Also agree about Lem vs. everyone else in sci-fi, tho a number of sci-fi writers are astonishingly bitchy)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:04 (twenty years ago)

Faulkner on Hemingway: “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:35 (twenty years ago)

Virginia Woolf, on 'Ulysses'
'underbred, the effort of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples'

this really good and could be made great by substituting nipples from pimples, which is how i originally read it.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:36 (twenty years ago)

for

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:36 (twenty years ago)

Virginia would never use the word "nipples" in polite company

― Dadaismus Is A Very Magic Fellow (Dada), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

Virginia S/W going at Joyce is partly a case of Spoilt (post-)Victorian Child doing snob action and partly (I think) maybe a bit of a rejection of any kind of rambunctious joy in literature, which is probably related to the first thing; I add the "rambunctious" because actually there are a few flashes of joy in Woolf's amusement-type books (Flush and Orlando), but it's the prissiest Hallmark joy imaginable, like the queen telling the type of joke that you recognize as a "joke" but would never think to actually laugh at.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:48 (twenty years ago)

Faulkner on Hemingway: “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

depending on your pov, you might call that a compliment.

― msp (mspa), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Faulkner on Hemingway: “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

I couldn't more perfectly sum up why I like Faulkner so much more than Hemingway if I tried!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

"depending on your pov, you might call that a compliment."

I don't think Faulkner consider it as such and Hemingway certainly responded as though it was an insult.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 31 March 2006 16:59 (twenty years ago)

Virginia S/W going at Joyce is partly a case of Spoilt (post-)Victorian Child doing snob action and partly (I think) maybe a bit of a rejection of any kind of rambunctious joy in literature, which is probably related to the first thing; I add the "rambunctious" because actually there are a few flashes of joy in Woolf's amusement-type books (Flush and Orlando), but it's the prissiest Hallmark joy imaginable, like the queen telling the type of joke that you recognize as a "joke" but would never think to actually laugh at.

The first half of your sentence is right on; the second half is spectacularly wrong, unless, of course, you and I differ about what joy means, which is entirely possible. Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, The Waves and Between the Acts contain moments of such beauty that Woolf's snobbery becomes irrelevant.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 31 March 2006 17:17 (twenty years ago)

You seem to differ with yourself on what "joy" means -- it does not mean "beauty."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 31 March 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

There's a Hemingway quote that might be a response to Faulkner (or the first shot?):
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

― Big Willy and the Twins (miloaukerman), Friday, 31 March 2006 18:32 (twenty years ago)

But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

Which allied to older and simpler and duller plots resulted in old, simple and midrange hash about an outdated masculinity. But hey, I ain't the one writing a parable about a dude wrestling with a fish.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 31 March 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

that faulkner comment on hemmingway is dumb. (i like faulkner better as a writer though).

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 31 March 2006 18:53 (twenty years ago)

I like Faulkner way better as well, but "I use big words!", gimme a break.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 31 March 2006 18:54 (twenty years ago)

I read this on the subway last night, and kinda figured that it was just Nick being Nick, which is fine by me, but clearly is not something that translates to actual journalism.
-- Matthew C Perpetua (perpetu...), March 1st, 2006 5:06 PM. (inca)

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Friday, 31 March 2006 19:02 (twenty years ago)

Woolf of Joyce is pretty unforgiveable, "underbred" wtf.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 31 March 2006 19:05 (twenty years ago)

hemingway's novels would probably be better as comic books. cause word choice doesn't seem to necessarily be the point of them.
m.

― msp (mspa), Friday, 31 March 2006 19:25 (twenty years ago)

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