Literary Criticism Gifts

Book surgery.

"I can see you drew heavily from your own bad writing."

"Nothing burns like the New York Times book review."

Actually, calling me one-dimensional isn't much of an insult

'Our panel consists of the noted psychologist L.V. Trinnell, author and critic Helene V. Nogorski, and professor R Travers Wilcox.'

'Your story is extremely sexist, dubious and dumb, the characters are one-dimensional and primitive. In other words - you wrote a bestseller, mister!'

"But you got some good reviews too, yeah?"

"In the first place, it isn't "maddening crowd.' It's 'madding crowd.' "

"That's the guy I hired to read Proust for me."

Bob encounters one of the bugs in the Jean Paul Sartre fan website.

Ed Flanders, Deconstruction Worker

Thought for today: "All the world's a stage." - Shakespeare. And boy, are there a lot of drama critics.

Herman Mankiewicz

Thomas Mann.

First Novels.

Reading my Critics

Blue Stockings

"Now I really hate poetry."

'Look! The new long awaited, highly anticipated but ultimately disappointing novel by that guy you like.'

Jean-Paul Sartre

Why we need poetry. . .

German Expressionist Breakfast

It's Dostoevsky. It's Melville. It's Flaubert. But it doesn't dance.

"It turns out everyone here is self-published."

"What the %@!!* is that?!" "Is that a leg? Wait—no, it's an arm. Wait—what?" "The frame is nice." "Whatever it is, it makes me miss Bob Ross." "Gasp!" "The intentionally lost Caravaggio"

Shakespeare was bisexual

"His exercise wheel has lost all its fascination sinces he started reading Hemingway."

"You'd think he hated music by the way he tortures it."

"VP J.D. Vance called Donald: 'cynical asshole,' a 'moral disaster,' a 'total fraud,' an 'idiot,' and suggested he might be 'America’s Hitler.'"

Man: 'How cute. He must like the movement.' Cat: 'There are some challenging themes here but little or no dramatic resonance.'

"That's five votes for In The Midst of Winter....three votes for The Hollow Ground....and, again, one vote for Moby-Dick."

The Forbidden Joyce Kilmer

"I did the math. If we want to read all of Proust in this lifetime, we have to start tomorrow morning."

George Orwell

The Proust of Twitter