There's nothing wrong with being concise and being funny
And while I am all about let's have some Dorothy Parker love, I'm not sure this essay really does her any favours:
The wicked wit and enigma of Dorothy Parker - 50 years on
Enquiring minds wonder, was she in fact the only woman at the famed Algonquin Round Table? Not according to the Wikipedia entry, which suggests that the author of that column is in thrall to the 'There Can Be Only One' theory of women's presence. Or just Did Not Do The Research.
One is not astounded to be told of her support for progressive causes, which as I recalled even featured in that movie Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle.
Why is 'finding her work tricky? [S]he’ll be slightly improbably shelved instead with literary giants: Penguin Classics’ The Collected Dorothy Parker.
WTF? Why not? (How bulky are the collected works of Oscar Wilde?) It may be this protean, unpigeonholable aspect of Parker that most looks forward to female authors today, as they shift between, say, fiction, memoir, poetry, journalism, screenwriting, live appearances and social media.
And that is different from female authors of the past exactly how, come on down Dame Rebecca!
I think there are underlying assumptions there that Big Important Writers write Big Important Books and stick to their last.
(Unfortunately I can't find online the article by Benjamin Markovits taking on the class and gender assumptions of Cyril Connolly's line about the pram in the hall as one of the Enemies of Promise, which seems related to this.) This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2618672.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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